The Chiffon Trenches, A Story of Perseverance

A Lust For The Beautiful

Photographed by Jonathan Becker

"You cannot live your life in the elitist world of fashion and not step out or you're disconnected. You have to realize that fashion is not the endgame." - André Leon Talley

Who is that man sitting front row at Karl's Chanel, Galliano's Dior, and Nicolas Ghesquière's Balenciaga? That man draped in fine couture silks adorned with filigree ornamentation... Oozing with incomparable taste, style, and confidence. That man is the late André Leon Talley. An enduring masthead of fashion journalism, style, and humanity at Vogue magazine. Despite his outward displays of eccentric pomp and pageantry, André Leon Talley, a man of great encyclopedic knowledge, was unreservedly an incredibly humbled force of kindness and compassion.

Talley's Chiffon Trenches offers a uniquely unmanicured insight into the seemingly glamorous yet segregated world of high fashion. Despite its obvious thematic focus on fashion, elements of trauma, friendship, and perseverance closely underwrite the fundamental ethos of the Chiffon Trenches. Talley, through his lyrical retrospective, unveils his bitter-sweet sources of formative influence, as well as grants the contemporary reader greater access to the psyche of fashion's most revered gatekeepers within the Western context.

Though Talley conjures up images of glamour and sartorial luxury, his upbringing was anything but glamorous. Talley was born into a working-class household in the Jim Crow South of the 40s. His formative years were defined by his late grandmother, Bennie Frances Davis, and the Southern Baptist Church. Two institutions that profoundly shaped the very man we have come to revere in the world of high culture. From his grandmother, he learned the importance of good manners, hard work, and perhaps most importantly, perseverance. From the church he gained access to the world of fine sunday dress. Memories of flamboyant hats, white satan gloves, and a whole lot of excellent tailoring are frequently recalled in Talley’s retrospectives. Both Bennie and the church thus intimately informed Talley's abilities to navigate through the prejudices of the deep south and in the worlds beyond.

However, there is a third, perhaps more sinister, series of events that have profoundly defined André Leon Talley. Sexual abuse. In his memoir, Talley discusses extensively about the innumerable sexual abuses he endured as a child. What started out as seemingly innocent encounters soon spiralled into something entirely violating and perverted. Though un-named, the perpetrators are characterised as elders of the community, specifically of the male sex. The consequences of such deeply distressing mishappenings would go on to warp Talley’s understanding of love and physical intimacy forever.

Talley writes of his shyness and general disinterest in physical intimacy - casual or otherwise. Despite his constant exposure to the indulgent decadence of New York in the 70s, Talley was simply not interested. His general lack of interest in both sex and courtship certainly afforded him the much needed focus to climb the ladders of Condé Nast.

Though Talley’s childhood saw moments of darkness, it was also filled with immense light. Amidst the roaring discouragements of the deep south, the church taught him his sense of community. His grandmother taught him the value of hardwork, kindness, and perservience. In his work, he expressed his undying love for the arts and his lust for the beautiful. In spite of the trials and tribulations, André Leon Talley, through his uncompromising commitment to humility and hard-work, persevered.