André Leon Talley

André Leon Talley (born October 16, 1949) is the former American editor-at-large of Vogue magazine. Talley has also served as international editor of Russian Numéro. 2Early life and education Talley was born October 16, 1949, in Washington, D.C., as the son of Alma Ruth Davis and William C. Talley, a taxi driver. His parents left him with his grandmother, Binnie Francis Davis, who was a cleaning lady at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. Davis raised him and he claims he was given an "understanding of luxury." His grandfather was a sharecropper. Talley grew up in the Jim Crow Era South, where the segregation was clear. He recalls “for a long time my grandmother would not allow white people to come into our house. That was her rule. The only white man who ever came into the house was the coroner." His love for fashion was cultivated at an early age by his grandmother, Bennie, and his discovery of Vogue magazine, which he first found in the local library at the age of 9 or 10.Talley was educated at Hillside High School, graduating in 1966, and North Carolina Central University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in French Literature in 1970. He was later granted a scholarship to Brown University, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in French Literature in 197