As part of their Power of Style talks, New York's French Institute Alliance Française celebrated the Little Black Dress with Vogue Contributing Editor André Leon Talley, showing fabulous images from Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren, Carolina Herrera to Rodarte and Prabal Gurung. Talley, on Monday night, enchanted the audience at the sold-out event with tales of stylish rebels. He spoke about Renée Zellweger's color choice and a "naughty" incident with Nicole Kidman and her stylist L'Wren Scott, Mick Jagger's girlfriend. We found out the homework Talley did before Andy Warhol introduced him to Karl Lagerfeld and what his two great icons, Diana Vreeland and his grandmother had in common.
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| André Leon Talley. Photo by Anne-Katrin Titze. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
The fashion authority also gave insight into what he considers great style in film and on the Red Carpet. I got a chance to ask him about his favorite costume designers and was happy to hear him mention some of my favorites from the Thirties and Forties Hollywood: Walter Plunkett, Orry-Kelly, Adrian, and Travis Banton.
Anne-Katrin Titze: You mentioned Adrian (designing for the stars at MGM from 1928-1942, from Dancing Lady to The Great Ziegfeld, from Anna Karenina (1935) to Ninotchka). Are there any contemporary costume designers in film whose work you like?
André Leon Talley: Milena Canonero. That's the only one…(Out Of Africa to Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Polanski's Carnage, and beyond) I think about fashion a lot. I think about fashion in context of history. Adrian, I mentioned him twice, was a great designer for film. So was Orry-Kelly. Does anybody here know who he is? (A few hands go up for the four-time Academy Award nominated designer of many Bette Davis and Dolores del Rio pictures). He was an extraordinary designer. Travis Banton (Marlene Dietrich's gowns for The Scarlet Empress, Carol Lombard's for My Man Godfrey and Nothing Sacred, Miriam Hopkins' for Design For Living come to mind) also. These were fabulous people. Walter Plunkett who did Gone With The Wind (and was one of Katharine Hepburn's favorite costume collaborators, see my Hepburn feature here). What I don't get are people who think they have knowledge but they don't have any knowledge. When I met Karl Lagerfeld in May of 1975 - I went with Andy Warhol who introduced me - Mr. Lagerfeld did not know who I was. Do you think I just walked into the Plaza Hotel and started talking? Oh, no, I was reading everything I could about the 18th century, because I knew Karl Lagerfeld loved the 18th century. You have to do your homework. Everything is about homework and editing.
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| André Leon Talley's Little Black Dress. Photo by Anne-Katrin Titze. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
On bringing the Forties into the 2000s.
ALT: Ralph Lauren dresses, very reminiscent of Adrian, Forties - beautiful. Rooney Mara wore his on the cover of Vogue for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Horrible movie but beautiful dress.
Here are some of André Leon Talley's perceptions of the world around him -
ALT: People are pretty much dressed okay. I think the average person is well-dressed for the most part in the street. I think people are dressed in wash and wear and that's okay. The only place where people are badly dressed is at the airport.
What does a former fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue and curator at the Met Museum’s Costume Institute have in common with Talley's grandmother?
ALT: I've learned everything I know about fashion from two people in my life. One being my grandmother and the other being Mrs. Vreeland. I grew up with my grandmother - I call her a pioneer woman - in North Carolina in a very humble household. My grandmother was a domestic maid all of her life and she had the most extraordinary elegance. Then I came to New York, and lo and behold, I met Diana Vreeland… I learned everything about the beauty of clothes from Diana Vreeland. She was working on a show called Romantic and Glamourous Hollywood Design [at the Met Costume Institute in 1975]. They were both very similar - they both loved a lot of rouge. My grandmother had blue hair. When I was young, I thought my grandmother had been blessed by god with blue hair…
How Diana Vreeland's famous friends entered his life?
ALT: I used to read out loud to Diana Vreeland… We had dinner and then I used to read to her. One of the books I read to her that she loved was a biography of the Queen Marie of Rumania. A thick book! Thick! You couldn't read it in one night. I would read maybe on a Friday night, then come up on a Saturday night, then Sunday night. I would maybe start reading at 10 and still be reading at 3:30. I would read magazine stories. I remember reading an article about Prince, the musician. And she said [he screams] "Get him on the phone! Get him over here for dinner next week! " You see, she was used to having dinner with Mick Jagger, Jack Nicholson, Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen, the famous writer, Greta Garbo, Jackie Kennedy, so she expected to have dinner with Prince. She was a great friend. We could sit and have a conversation for four hours about espadrilles.
As for his red carpet observations and tips.
ALT: Sometimes navy blue can be black - it's an individual choice. Renée Zellweger is a dear friend of mine. She is a very small person.
A little black dress by L'Wren Scott, the girlfriend of Sir Mick Jagger, who's a great friend of mine, she was wearing to the Golden Globes when Mick Jagger got an award… I saw her on the red carpet and thought, oh, L'Wren Scott has taken Nicole Kidman's Chanel dress and put it on herself and gave Nicole Kidman a Gucci dress! Because L'Wren Scott was the stylist for Nicole Kidman. And I thought, ooh, how naughty of her. [When he put the exhibit together and asked for the Chanel dress, he found out that L'Wren had designed the dress herself - the night before the Golden Globes.] It looks like the kind of dress you'd want to wear if you're going to Hollywood. Very simple, very elegant, and just one fabulous detail.
I am so sick of mermaid dresses, borrowed bling-bling and a pose [he makes one].
Tom Ford made a fabulous dress for Gwyneth Paltrow for the Oscars last year - he made it in white. I called up Tom Ford to ask could he make it in black? And of course he made it in black. And it was inspired by the great film by George Cukor - The Women.
About Mark Jacobs' wearing a Comme Des Garçons lace dress for men at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Ball.
ALT: He came up the stairs in this Comme Des Garçons lace dress, for the evening with these Pilgrim buckle shoes, with diamante buckles and white Brooks Brothers boxer shorts. Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg was going to have cardiac arrest... He [Jacobs, not Bloomberg] was pure man and wanted to wear a little black dress. He inspired me so much.
Coco Chanel invented the little black dress in 1927. I'm giving all credit to Chanel who did the first LBD in the Twenties and it was published in Vogue.
Diane von Furstenberg has one of the best definitions of the Little Black Dress.
[He quotes from his book]: "The LBD is a true friend. You remember when you met her. What happened the first time you wore her. She travels with you, is patient and confident. You go to her when you don't know where else to go and she is always reliable and timeless."
André Leon Talley's elegant new book traces the evolution in his Little Black Dress (Rizzoli, 2013).
