212/BLOG - Fashion News Brief • Andre Leon Tally On How To Break Into The Fashion Industry

Andre Leon Tally is one of our favorite larger-than-life fashion personalities so when we read his mentor article in this mornings WWD, we just had to share it with you. One hundred and fifty students and patrons from the Art Institute of Philadelphia came out to hear ALT's life story and how he broke into the business. His lessons below:

Lesson One: “Remember where you came from and how important that is, and that will sustain you,” he said. He was raised in North Carolina by his grandmother, who worked as a maid at nearby Duke University, but always dressed to the nines for church. “She didn’t have a lot, but she had remarkable style,” he added. “When I was 13, an uncle asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said, ‘A fashion editor.’ I had been reading Vogue for some time by then. My uncle said, ‘What is a fashion editor?’ My grandmother defended my decision. She always encouraged me.”

Lesson Two: “Always be curious and do your research.” While he was working for Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1975, she handed him a dress Claudette Colbert wore in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1934 screen version of “Cleopatra” and asked him to style the mannequin appropriately. He went to the library and decided that Cleopatra should be sunkissed and got special permission to have his model painted gold. “It matched the dress,” he added. “Mrs. Vreeland loved it.”

Lesson Three: Travel and find beauty and style where you go.

Lesson Four: Practice good manners. “I once had to follow a woman from Philadelphia named Mrs. T. Charlton Henry to Paris for her couture appointments at Givenchy,” Talley said. “It was an assignment for WWD. She wrote me a note after and said, ‘The best thing about you is your wonderful manners.’ I saved the note.”

Lesson Five: Fetch coffee if you have to. “When you are lucky enough to land an internship or get your first job, do not be offended when someone asks you to make a Starbucks run,” he noted. “At my first job working for Andy Warhol, I answered phones, ran the stamp machine to the post office, made $50 a week and had to live at the YMCA. But I was literally introduced to the world through that job. Mr. Warhol encouraged me with enthusiasm. He thought everything you did was great.”

Lesson Six: Find a mentor. Vreeland, he said, was his most important. “She taught me everything. Anna Wintour is now my mentor. She is not that person in ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ She is like Catherine the Great of Russia. She has kept that magazine on top, raised money for the Met and for the Democratic party.”

He then went on to present the coveted Emil DeJohn scholarships to students Carl Hildenbrand and Kevin Coleman and checked out several student portfolios, urging one lucky student to give him her card.