Paul was determined; I guess he wanted signals, but I could send none. It was hopeless, useless. This idea of mounting an individual and causing what I had only known as deep discomfort…he gave up and we got dressed.
Nothing came of this one date. Embarrassed but possessed of a deep crush, I hoped he would ask me for dinner, but it was clear he was only looking for sex, and I was a pathetic excuse for a shag. I never saw Paul intimately again. I retreated into my fears like a turtle retreating into his carapace.
Love has not been in my life in any degree. I never learned how to maintain strong self-worth when it came to two people getting down, literally clinging to each other. Yet, I have found love in little interludes of innocence or wonderful, life-enhancing bonds, and friendships that grew out of respect, affection, and admiration. I have had many emotional highs and definite lows when it comes to love and romance, and yet I am alone.
—
Betty and I were invited to a Saturday lunch at Maxim’s by Andre Oliver, who was close to Pierre Cardin. Oliver once ran a very tony men’s store in New York on Fifty-seventh Street, where everyone, including Gianni Agnelli and Oscar de la Renta, supported him by buying his expensive cashmere V-neck pullovers, in every color available.
When he invited us to lunch, Andre failed to tell us we would be joined by a fourth: Diana Ross. She was beautiful, with impeccable manners, and completely down-to-earth. After lunch, she wanted to go shopping for some really good vintage jewelry. E.
Oxeda was recommended, and it was just around the corner from Maxim’s, on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, so we walked over.
Upon entering, Madame Oxeda herself greeted us. It was the first time I ever saw a black woman shop in Paris, and Diana shopped just like the society women I had come to know. She selected several diamond bracelets set in platinum for herself and had them delivered to the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, as she wanted to wear one to Club Sept that evening.
I was thunderstruck; if you were a star and black, from the United States, you could go shopping for diamonds in Paris, and like in the movies, they never asked for a credit card or check.
Diana offered Betty and me gifts, instructing us to select anything from the glass cases. We both refused, with me fearing I would lose my job if I were to accept an expensive gift from this star.
Very few people of color existed in the fashion world at this time, except on the runways. Black models had their moment in the sun early in the 1970s, when the Battle of Versailles pitted Paris and New York’s top designers against one another, and the New York designers introduced American black models to Paris. By the time I came along, the black models were the stars.
Paris embraced black culture; of course they pirated a lot of things from black culture, too. This was part of a French tradition going back to Josephine Baker, this little girl, a child born in Saint Louis of a poor background, who went from the end of the chorus line in Harlem to stardom in Paris.
Saint Laurent was one of the first to embrace diversity in models. He was born in North Africa; blackness was part of the culture. Mounia, from Martinique, a world-class model, was in his cabine, as well as Kirat Young, the stunningly beautiful Indian model.
They would stand in the Saint Laurent studio all day and have dresses fitted on them for very little money, but then they also got to walk the runway for the couture. That’s how they made their fame. Each designer tried to have two or three stars in their catwalk.
Black girls ruled the runway. Their blackness was appreciated and celebrated.
YSL always had beautiful black models, sure, but in the summer of 1978, Hubert de Givenchy did something marvelous: He showed only black models in his High Chic couture collection. Mr. Givenchy was a real French aristocrat; he created the little black dress on Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And now to show in Paris with all black models? No designer had ever done such a thing! What audacity!
Imagine my shock, siting on the front row and seeing this powerful statement from Givenchy. There was not one white girl. This was a rarity, and surely it was news. I went right back to my office and typed out a loving embrace of Givenchy on the telex machine, straight from the top of my head to New York. What was I there for if not to embrace such pioneering moments in fashion? If I didn’t write about its importance, no one else would. I wrote: “Givenchy has a knock-dead cabine of models, most of them imported directly from the States. Sandy, Carol Miles, Lynn, Sophie and Diane Washington, who is like a marvelous satin doll version of Lena Horne. Carol, from LA, walks like she’s ready for takes in a movie remake of Stormy Weather.”
It was quiet activism at the time, no overt celebration of blackness. I embraced Givenchy, not just because he had all black models wearing his clothes, but because he was smart enough to realize those models gave the clothes new attitude. Putting these elegant clothes on black girls injected fresh air into the staid establishment of Givenchy.
The deportment and the carriage of those girls in those very expensive couture dresses created a fabulous modernity.
Soon after my ecstatic WWD write-up of Givenchy, rumors came back to me that someone at the house of YSL was going around saying I was stealing Yves’s original croquis (or sketches) and handing them to Givenchy for money.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Their collections were not even similar.
This was the kind of racism I experienced in fashion. Subtle, casual jabs that white people inherently make toward people of color. Whispers of some crime behind my back. Jealousy in its most perverted state. It surprised me. A black man is always getting accused of doing something egregious.
I was naïve; I didn’t see the connection between my embrace of Givenchy and the snide looks certain members of the Saint Laurent camp were suddenly passing my way.
It was bad enough Lagerfeld and I were so close, but now I was heaping praise on one of YSL’s main competitors in haute couture. Pierre Bergé was furious; I was oblivious.
Racism is systemic everywhere, but no one in Paris talked about race. Racism was always underneath, sleeping below the epidermis of everything I did. It was mostly dormant but would raise its head every so often. I knew my very being was shocking to some people. That I was black, sure, but also that I was so tall and thin, that I spoke French meticulously. I had a strong opinion and I looked people in the eye. I didn’t turn away. I may have been insecure but I was never shy. My knowledge and my passion and love for fashion and literature and art and history gave me confidence. I was in Paris to edit and style pictures, and I intended to do so successfully. I was living my moment. My dream achieved.
I didn’t have time back then to contemplate my plight as a black man making it in the world. I was too busy trying to make it work. For the most part I barely noticed it and only now, looking back, do I realize the blinders I had to keep on in order to survive.
Instead, I internalized and buried the pain deep within myself, as black men and women have been forced to do time and time again.
One night at a party, Paloma Picasso asked to speak to me privately.
“André, I don’t know how to say this, but I think you should know. Clara Saint has been going around all of Paris referring to you as ‘Queen Kong.’ ”
Clara Saint, the YSL Rive Gauche publicist, the one pushed to the side so Loulou could marry Thadée. What a ton of bricks. I felt my face flush, and for a moment I thought I might cry.
“I thought everyone liked me,” I said. I was young and naïve. Here I was, running around Paris, thinking I was successful, and these sophisticated, elegant people in the world of fashion were comparing me to an ape behind my back.
“There are many hypocrites in the world,” Paloma said. She took my hand and kissed it. “You are loved.”
I thanked her, and left, and did everything in my power to pretend I had never heard the words “Queen Kong.” Comparing a black person to an ape is the worst, most institutionalized act of racism. It dehumanizes us, implies that
we are less than human beings, attempting to remove all our value and worth. It’s the worst kind of pain.
I didn’t tell anyone, except Karl, who made some snarky remark, but Karl was used to the evil and viciousness of French fashion; it was just water off his back. Karl had a steel will about that kind of stuff, but my Southern sensibilities were still learning how to manage this environment. And though Clara Saint denies saying it, the shock of being called Queen Kong reminded me that even though someone smiled in my face, they could be plotting against me behind my back.
As much as it hurt, Paloma had done me a huge favor. She had opened my eyes to a reality I so badly wanted to deny.
—
In his book Chic Savages, Mr. Fairchild wrote about why I resigned from my posts at W and WWD in Paris. He said: “Talley, tall and talented, mixed gracefully in the fashion world and in society on both sides of the Atlantic. He hadn’t mixed too well with me, though, and one day, without warning, he had marched over to the American embassy and resigned his posts, at W and Women’s Wear Daily, without warning, declaring, in a written statement, I had treated him, a black man, like a plantation slave
owner would.”
This is all entirely untrue.
In the fall of 1979, one of my bosses at WWD, Michael Coady, made a trip from New York to Paris and sat in on a big meeting we were having.
In the middle of the meeting, Coady stood up and grandly announced, “André, there’s rumors that you’ve been in and out of every designer’s bed in Paris. This has got to end.”
I responded with stony silence, but in my head I thought, I must be very busy, because there are many designers in Paris. Have I been in Karl Lagerfeld’s bed, as well as the beds of YSL, Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, Kenzo, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Sonia Rykiel? All of these designers? I did sleep in Karl Lagerfeld’s guest room sometimes, sure, but I always lay alone, in gilded splendor.
The accusation was stunning in its racism, and it had so many levels of hurt, insult, and pain. Michael Coady was a very important person and had always supported me.
Now here he was, insinuating I was just a big black buck, sent to satisfy the sexual needs of designers, be they man or woman—I had no talent, no point of view or knowledge of fashion. And worst of all, he had made the accusation in front of the staff of WWD, all the men and women who had come to respect me in the short amount of time I had worked in the rue Cambon office.
The accusation was also clearly not true. No such rumor was going around Paris. It looked to me that Coady had invented it to put me in my place. But it was the wrong thing to say to me. I had grown up in a house with dignity and had no ability to handle such things. The humiliation was intense, and I had no idea how to respond. I quietly got up and walked out of the room.
I left the office at lunch and walked two blocks, to La Madeleine, a great church in Paris, where they funeralized Coco Chanel as well as Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker.
In a wooden pew, I quietly meditated, incubated, and reflected. Do I have to accept this insult? What should I do?
I lit three candles: one for my grandmother, one for Mrs. Vreeland, and one for my plight as a black man in a white world. By the time I left the church, I knew that to preserve my dignity and value as a man, I had to resign from WWD.
That weekend, I was invited to the beautiful Deauville home of Jean and Irene Amic. Betty and François Catroux were good friends of theirs and would also be in attendance. The Amics owned a large parfumerie and supplied flowers from their fields in Grasse. I didn’t tell any of them of my intention to resign. In fact, I didn’t tell a single soul because I didn’t trust anyone enough. I just walked along the beach and thought about how to handle this the right way.
On Monday, I went to the office and typed up my letter of resignation. I addressed it to John Fairchild, because he was the head of the empire. I wrote eloquently and I don’t recall including the words “plantation owner.” My letter was not meant to convey any hatred toward Mr. Fairchild, this genius who could make or destroy a company or a person with his brilliant sense of wordsmithing.
I did have my resignation letter notarized at the American embassy. This was important to me; I didn’t want reports to come out saying I had been fired for stealing petty cash or something like that. I would not resign without official proof. This was not a game.
To his credit, Mr. Fairchild sent me word that I could stay in Paris and still write or file stories, not having to come to work on a daily basis. I knew I could not be compromised. I was never going to go back but I didn’t know where I was going to go next. Everything had been going so well, I had thought I’d be with WWD for a few more years at least before I’d have to figure out my next job. I hadn’t expected this type of humiliation to get in the way of my career.
For the next three months, I hid away from the world in Karl Lagerfeld’s red-silk-upholstered guest room. He never bothered me. He was exceedingly generous, paying for everything, including my laundry, my meals, and anything else I needed. As he left for his studio in the morning, he’d try to coax me into coming along with him, but I couldn’t. My star was diminished, tarnished, by envy and innuendos. How could I show my face to the people of Paris with this scarlet letter tattooed on my silk crêpe de chine shirts?
Oscar de la Renta eventually let slip what he discovered had actually happened behind the scenes with the infamous Michael Coady meeting. Mr. Fairchild had been the one to orchestrate my resignation. Pierre Bergé had given Mr. Fairchild an ultimatum: If I were to stay in Paris, YSL would pull all their advertising money from W as well as WWD. That would have been a lot of revenue. Mr. Bergé huffed and puffed, and Mr.
Fairchild, in a bid to save the advertising, sent Michael Coady to Paris on a mission: to get me in line.
Lagerfeld was the professional and personal nemesis of Saint Laurent, but I had thought I could straddle the fence between both houses. I was wrong. When I was applauding Givenchy for his all-black cabine, I was also making an enemy out of Pierre Bergé, who did everything he could to keep me out of the Saint Laurent inner circle, despite my closeness to Betty and Loulou. My wanton promotion of Hubert de Givenchy stoked every ounce of burning jealous rage within Pierre Bergé’s body. He swallowed whole the rumor that I had stolen sketches from Yves. And to top it off, I had written a less-than-stellar WWD review of a production of Jean Cocteau’s play The Two-Headed Eagle that Pierre had put up.
Pierre thought I was a threat to the house of Saint Laurent and his own power. I was not a threat. I embraced Saint Laurent and cherished my friendships with Yves, Betty, and Loulou. Perhaps even my praise was problematic to Pierre, because my plaudits made his pale by comparison.
Mr. Fairchild had literally made the career of Yves Saint Laurent at WWD, and he supported Saint Laurent in a very big way; I supported Saint Laurent also. I was a big fan of Saint Laurent, as well as a big fan of Karl Lagerfeld, as well as of Hubert de Givenchy.
In January, Karl paid for my ticket back to New York. I had no idea what I was going to do next.
V
Back in New York, people knew I had a reason for leaving WWD and they knew what that reason was. I was not the first or last person to run afoul of Pierre Bergé. All of my New York friends were still my friends.
Thus began my freelance career, with Francine Crescent of French Vogue, Carrie Donovan at The New York Times, occasional pieces for Interview, and anyone else who offered me work.
Just like she had at the beginning of my career, Diana Vreeland reached out on my behalf. Carrie said she had never read letters like Mrs. Vreeland’s personal recommendations to hire me.
All this kept me busy but I felt adrift. I knew my grandmother and the rest of my relatives in Durham, North Carolina, would take me in with open arms. I’d had my shot at the big leagues of fashion, and it had blown up in my face. What exactly was I fighting for up in New York?
As if she heard my soul crying out, I got a call from Mrs. Euni
ce Johnson, of Ebony magazine, asking if I would fly to Chicago and meet with her and her husband, Mr. John H. Johnson, scion of the Ebony empire.
The Johnsons had cofounded Johnson Publishing Company, which printed Jet and Ebony, in 1942. Ebony was the black community’s answer to the weekly Life magazine.
Eunice also created and orchestrated the Ebony Fashion Fair, a traveling charity fashion show presenting the best of high fashion and style to the black women of America, as well as Fashion Fair cosmetics, its offspring and a financial windfall.
Marina Schiano was head of YSL in the United States and a close family member of the YSL clan. She had a Mona Lisa smile and nerves of steel. Helmut Newton once said he wished he could photograph her voice. She was like a sister to me. I’m wearing cable knee-length cashmere socks, Bermudas, and a tweed jacket that Manolo Blahnik bought for me.
The Johnsons flew me out to Chicago, and I went directly to their glamorous headquarters. I wore one of my Armani suits (as I’d already been introduced to bespoke dressing in Paris) and a straw boater. They hired me on the spot, as a fashion editor, to be based in their New York headquarters. My salary was exactly equal to what I had been making at WWD.
My family did not read WWD at all, nor would they even have known where to purchase that publication. But they all subscribed to and read the monthly Ebony, as well as Jet, a weekly publication that addressed the black community on a national basis. Finally, I had a job that would make my entire church family and all my aunts and cousins proud.
Mrs. Johnson took her job, and her personal shopping, quite seriously. Her spending budget for the European fashion shows was huge, and she was interested in only the best, most opulent examples of high fashion. With her daughter, Linda, by her side, she broke barricades, shopping at the important Italian houses of Valentino and Emilio Pucci. When she first went to Paris in 1958, doors reluctantly opened to these well-dressed, turned-out, beautiful brown-skinned Americans with a thick checkbook.
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