Today, I see many fashion foreign media websites almost plastered with commemorative stories about a man called ANDRÉ LEON TALLEY.
For this Chinese translated as André Leon Tully, perhaps you, like me at the beginning, have only been left with a huge and exaggerated appearance: nearly 2 meters tall, dressed in a large and ornate mop robe, wearing exaggerated ornaments.
However, to know him is one of the few Africans who has long stood in vanity Fair with an unignorable complexion, what an admirable experience it must have!
Born in 1948, Tully spent his entire childhood in a small town in the American South that remained Jim Crowist, a set of policies and measures by the American ruling class that imposed racial segregation and racial discrimination against blacks. This poor black boy who grew up in such a voiceless background can become a prominent figure in the fashion industry that is highly anticipated, which is tantamount to "turning against the wind" and surfing life.
As a child, Tully's parents were both working in the field, so the younger Tully was raised by his grandmother. Her grandmother was a cleaner at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, in the south. This environment, rife with Jim Crowism (racial discrimination), has also contributed to the unscrupulous crimes of some criminals. For the disadvantaged black group, in addition to their own internal solidarity and mutual assistance, most of them can only swallow their breath and have nowhere to groan.
At that time, most blacks would be treated or persecuted unfairly by racial classes, and Tully Jr. was no exception. He suffered a sustained sexual assault when he was 9 years old, and the shame and pain made him afraid of death. Perhaps, when fate throws people into a trough, it may be the best period for life to turn. Instead of letting little Tully fall into the abyss, God opened another window for him. As he wandered around a library in Durham, USA, a magazine called Vogue suddenly shone "beautiful" to little Tully. Since then, little Tully's heart has planted the seedlings of fashion dreams. This seedling also built him a "peach blossom garden" for his escapism. Since then, going out to the newsstand to buy fashion magazines has become one of his most important and enjoyable memories, and he thinks that fashion will be a place that can accept him as he really is.
Indeed, in the end he proved it. His identity hashtags # Fashion Editor, #记者, #造型师, #全能偶像, and was dubbed the "fabulous pharaoh" by fashion magazines. His influence, insight and knowledge are unparalleled and he is respected by many celebrities. And he who created this great name still experienced an extraordinary life journey. After all, dreams are not conceived, but limped out.
After graduating from central university in North Carolina, he worked hard to win a scholarship from the famous Brown University in the United States and chose to study French literature. After completing his master's degree in French literature, he went to New York, where he coincidentally visited Diana Freeland, who was known as the "godmother of fashion" at the time, to do unpaid work for the Costume Research Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In Tully's life texts, Diana Freeland was one of the most important mentors of his life.
Subsequently, he became acquainted with Andy Warhol, the most famous artist in the art world of the 20th century, and served as a front desk for the magazine Interview, which Warhol founded. On the other hand, fluent French skills also helped Tully get a job opportunity in the Paris office of the famous print media "Women's Daily". After that, he successively worked for W magazine and the New York Times, a professional women's fashion. In 1983, the seedlings he planted in his childhood finally blossomed — embarking on the fashion ship dream of the American version of Vogue.
In this fashion circle dominated by white elites, skin color, style and figure put a lot of pressure on Tully, and the pain at work will still bring discrimination and harm. He said people always like to blame black people. Tully is said to have been accused of stealing design drafts from famous fashion designer YSL and handing them over to designer Givenchy. Because of his burly figure, he was called "Queen Jingang" by a certain brand, and a fashion editor also compared him to an orangutan, suggesting that he had an affair with some designers. He did not justify or roar at this, and the shadow of the hour made him choose silence, to speak with action, to influence with action.
The New York Times argues that Tully stood out and was accepted by the white elite because of his qualities — politeness, high education, creativity, and fluency in French. Tully is not a survivor, but survives in the cracks.
Putting aside these external pressures, Tully's influence on the fashion industry is still quite deep. As the first African-American in the history of a fashion magazine to serve as a creative director, a figure who broke boundaries but did not forget his heart, he ushered in an era of inclusive, diverse fashion. He is the fashion industry's greatest advocate and booster, providing inspiring suggestions or revisions that pique people's interest in seemingly insignificant fashion details. Not only did he champion black models and black designers, such as supermodel Naomi Campbell and Stephen Burrows, the brightest clothing star in the United States in the 70s; in 2008, he also became a fashion consultant for the Obama family, introducing the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, to the then-unknown Chinese fashion designer Jason Wu, with the influence of the first lady. Jason grew to fame in the fashion industry.
Designer Tom Ford review
The Guardian reported
W magazine review
In 2021, he was awarded the Order of Merit in Arts and Literature, the highest honour awarded by France for his significant contribution to the spread of French culture.
January 18, 2022, became the last page of Tully's life travel book. In this life, he only hopes to be remembered as the person who changed the lives of young people. He did, and he left inspiring examples for dreamers.