The longtime editor reflects on his style choices in the new documentary about his rise in the fashion world.
It’s hard to imagine Andre Leon Talley ever making a fashion faux pas, but according to the longtime fashion editor, he’s made a few.
In a clip from The Gospel According to André, the new documentary directed by Kate Novack and produced by Andrew Rossi (director of 2016’s The First Monday in May), Talley reflects on some “ridiculous style choices.”
“I had Miuccia Prada make me a mauve alligator coat and then I wrapped my turban – it was molded like the Indians do,” he recalls, revealing that when he saw it in the paper the next day, “I thought this was a big mistake.”
But regardless of those “fashion disasters,” designer Marc Jacobs praises Talley for owning his looks. “There is no hesitation like, ‘Do you think I should wear this?’ It’s just [whoosh] there, out there,” Jacobs says.
In addition to his famous style, the new film examines Talley’s humble upbringing in the South and his legacy as a longtime fashion journalist, breaking ground as a black man in a predominantly white industry. Framed by the 2016 presidential election, Talley’s journey becomes a meditation on race, community and what it meant for the journalist to leave one world behind for another.
And just like his notable appearances in a string of other fashion documentaries -- from The September Issue to House of Z -- and his time as judge on America’s Next Top Model, Talley provides great, quotable talking head.
The Gospel According to André (Magnolia Pictures) is in theaters May 25.
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