‘The Chiffon Trenches’ Is an Abuse Survivor’s Account

André Leon Talley’s fallout with Anna Wintour is only one piece of the puzzle

Former American editor-at-large for Vogue magazine Andre Leon Talley attends the “Oscar de la Renta: The Retrospective” Benefit Gala at the de Young in San Francisco, California. Photo: Steve Jennings/Getty Images for Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

In the epigraph of André Leon Talley’s highly anticipated memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, the fashion-industry legend writes this Clara Ward quote: “How I got over, How I got over, My soul looks back and wonders how I got over.” This woman was a famous gospel artist of the mid-20th century whose popularity reached its peak around the time Talley was growing up in Durham, North Carolina, and the words could not have been more fitting for a man who has had to overcome so much in his 70 years. Much of the buzz surrounding The Chiffon Trenches has been around Talley’s fallout with his former friend and co-worker, American Vogue’s editor in chief Anna Wintour.

In fact, one could conclude that the snippets about their relationship’s demise were what led to the book’s publication date being pushed up from September to just this past Tuesday. But if you’re expecting to find drama in the form of hair pulling, screaming profanities, or wardrobe or furniture damage, you will be sorely disappointed. The book, as its author, is more sophisticated than that. Instead, what you will find is a cautionary tale of what happens when one queer Black man devotes his vast mind and body to the machinery that is any institution and is unceremoniously rejected from it. The Chiffon Trenches is not a catty tell-all but an abuse survivor’s account from childhood through middle age and beyond. To reduce Talley’s work to White people’s mistreatment of him would be to ignore an irreplaceable account of Condé Nast’s — and the fashion world at large’s — heyday.

Leading up to the book’s publication, E. Alex Jung of Vulture profiled Talley in which he describes race in the book as looming “uncomfortably in the periphery.” He also notes how Talley refuses to call out racism in the interview when asked about an instance when designer and Yves Saint Laurent muse Loulou de la Falaise allegedly called him a “n––– dandy” in public. Jung writes, “On some level, he recognizes that he has compartmentalized racism but is unwilling, or simply unable, to stop.” It is an unsympathetic reading of what’s taking place. When I read that interview as well as The Chiffon Trenches, I saw race from page to page…