Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Andre Leon Talley Full Interview

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Andre Leon Talley Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: the arts, and how to live a balanced life. My
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Speaker 1: next guest was born in Washington, d C. But was
1:42
Speaker 1: raised in Durham, North Carolina. That is where he that
1:46
Speaker 1: is where his journey started to become a legendary style
1:49
Speaker 1: icon and um former creative director of Vogue Magazine. His
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Speaker 1: new memoir, The Chiffon Trenches offers a candid look at
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Speaker 1: who's who are. The Last fifty Year is a fashion
2:00
Speaker 1: just engaged in menoir tales with raw honesty. The story
2:04
Speaker 1: how he not only survived the brutal style landscape, but
2:07
Speaker 1: thrive despite racism. Illicit rumors and all the other challenges
2:11
Speaker 1: of this notoriously cut through industry to become one of
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Speaker 1: the most renowned voices in fact, faces and fashion. Please
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Speaker 1: work with the money making conversation. It's the Andre Leon Tally,
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Speaker 1: good morning. How are you pretty good? My friend? Uh,
2:26
Speaker 1: let's get there. Let's look thank you for calling them
2:29
Speaker 1: on money making conversation, sir. Yeah, let's let's talk about
2:34
Speaker 1: your style on the cover. Because I was reading the
2:35
Speaker 1: book and in the book there's a photo in three
2:40
Speaker 1: that shows you sporting a very similar hat to what
2:43
Speaker 1: you're sporting on the cover right now, and then I
2:46
Speaker 1: go further back, there's a similar style but there's more
2:49
Speaker 1: more a floppy brim on it. Now, Okay, you know
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Speaker 1: I'm a fashion guy, so so I loved you. I
2:57
Speaker 1: had a great time reading the book. But let's talk
2:59
Speaker 1: about this look on the of a right quick, This
3:00
Speaker 1: hat that I saw in three, but the earlier version
3:04
Speaker 1: early with the floppy brown. Yeah, that hat is the
3:08
Speaker 1: same hat that's taken in the photograph. It's the same
3:11
Speaker 1: heat I took in a photograph on the cover, and
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Speaker 1: that it's the hat that I've had most of my
3:17
Speaker 1: adult life. I was brought in England. It's a classic voter.
3:22
Speaker 1: And the floppy one was a Paris hat. That was
3:25
Speaker 1: a hat that had been bought in purchased in Paris.
3:29
Speaker 1: And I don't have that sloppy one, the early one,
3:31
Speaker 1: I don't know where it may have. It be a
3:32
Speaker 1: home in the closet, I'm not sure. But the one
3:34
Speaker 1: I have on the cover and then eighty three, it's
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Speaker 1: the hat to always travel with me. I've kept it
3:38
Speaker 1: all this time and it is my scenature had. I
3:40
Speaker 1: love the hat. It's the hat that I think it
3:44
Speaker 1: expresses who I am. I think it's classic. I think
3:47
Speaker 1: it's it's it's symbolizes jazz, creativity and an elegant Well,
3:54
Speaker 1: you know I've worn hats. You know, I don't wear
3:56
Speaker 1: hats anymore like I used to. And when I go,
3:59
Speaker 1: i'd like several, like three different styles, and you you
4:02
Speaker 1: you locked into a signature brand which is commendable, so
4:05
Speaker 1: so so, but you had to go through several before
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Speaker 1: you got to this one hat here. Yes, well I did,
4:11
Speaker 1: I did, I did, as I said. The one of
4:13
Speaker 1: the floppy soft floppy one was a very beautiful hat
4:16
Speaker 1: from Paris, France who came to me in about the seventies. Well,
4:21
Speaker 1: as a child, I was drawn to the hats, and
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Speaker 1: I think I had beautiful hats when I was a child,
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Speaker 1: like you know, going to church, and not extravagant as
4:30
Speaker 1: the straw hats, but you know, felt hats and snow
4:33
Speaker 1: caps and steed caps and all that kind of stuff.
4:35
Speaker 1: I've always been drawn to a hat. I think it's
4:37
Speaker 1: just the exclamation point to your look. Absolutely. You know,
4:40
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. In your book you said you found
4:42
Speaker 1: your fantasy world in books, records and classical music. Need
4:46
Speaker 1: a Samone with the Franklin and in the age of
4:49
Speaker 1: twelve of your world became the glossy pages of Vogue.
4:52
Speaker 1: Talking about that journey of those because I know that.
4:54
Speaker 1: I always tell people you you find yourself when you're young,
4:56
Speaker 1: and if you and really, if you understand that's where
4:59
Speaker 1: your gifts really are they when you're in your forties
5:01
Speaker 1: and fifties, you should be making money money off of
5:03
Speaker 1: your gifts. If you do what I did. I did,
5:05
Speaker 1: I made money. I got good paychecks in Vogue thirty
5:09
Speaker 1: eight ard years. Someone asked me in England on a
5:12
Speaker 1: radio show, why aren't you stay there for so long,
5:14
Speaker 1: and I said, because of the paychecks. It was a
5:18
Speaker 1: good paychecks. Well, you know. And when I discovered Vogue
5:21
Speaker 1: magazine and the Durham Public Library, it was a revelation
5:25
Speaker 1: to me. It was a world that I was not
5:27
Speaker 1: exposed to in my home. And it was a beautiful world,
5:30
Speaker 1: as a world of literature, art, music, glamorous people, famous people,
5:35
Speaker 1: beautiful people, and it was a world of substance style.
5:39
Speaker 1: And I just gravitated towards that. I love Vogue and
5:42
Speaker 1: I loved any sort of um tributary that came off
5:46
Speaker 1: the river. Vogue Life magazine. Salid Kirkland was a great editor.
5:50
Speaker 1: She had great flashion stories, the New York Times fashion supplements.
5:54
Speaker 1: So I just I was an only child, and I
5:57
Speaker 1: just was pretty much was a loner. And I when
5:59
Speaker 1: people playing basketball or baseball, I was in my house
6:02
Speaker 1: tearing out the pages of Vogue, not for the beautiful
6:05
Speaker 1: pictures only, but for the words. For what the words
6:08
Speaker 1: spoke to me, The stories spoke to me, The way
6:11
Speaker 1: that people looked in at homes spoke to me, the
6:14
Speaker 1: way the men. They had a column called Men in
6:16
Speaker 1: Vogue by Camille do A. He was French, he lived
6:20
Speaker 1: in New York, and I met him and he just
6:23
Speaker 1: to his column men in Vogue. This is just where
6:25
Speaker 1: I wanted to be. They were velvet jackets, they wore
6:28
Speaker 1: shirts with ruffles, they were velvet slippers, and it was
6:31
Speaker 1: all very much what I wanted to be. And I
6:33
Speaker 1: dreamed about this world, and I suddenly was thrust into
6:36
Speaker 1: this world. I went to Vogue as a news editor.
6:42
Speaker 1: I was promoted to create a director Vogue. Well, I
6:49
Speaker 1: don't want to get the Vogue yet, because your journey
6:51
Speaker 1: to Vogue is an interesting one. And that's what it's
6:53
Speaker 1: a compelling one because in the book you talk about
6:57
Speaker 1: you know, we're I don't talk about it. These are
6:58
Speaker 1: actual dealing with racism, dealing with rumors, dealing with lives,
7:03
Speaker 1: deal with name calling and all that. But let's even
7:05
Speaker 1: go further back, when you're in your youth, when you
7:08
Speaker 1: when your your parents brought you from DC to live
7:12
Speaker 1: with your great grandmother and your grandmother and grandmother grandmother.
7:16
Speaker 1: Tell us about that experience, because that's where your faith
7:18
Speaker 1: really was. Growing up in my grandmother's house and the
7:22
Speaker 1: only child, I was pampered, I was spoiled. I was
7:25
Speaker 1: was that a good thing was that a good good thing.
7:27
Speaker 1: You're being pampered and spoil. Was that a good thing? Yes?
7:29
Speaker 1: It was good? Was purchase spoiled? But also I was
7:33
Speaker 1: given the great lessons of life an example such as values, church, discipline.
7:40
Speaker 1: And I had chores. I had to make up my
7:42
Speaker 1: bed perfectly as Michelle Obama daughter daughters, to make up
7:45
Speaker 1: the beds perfectly in the White House. I had to
7:48
Speaker 1: polish the floors with Johnson's spacewax. I had to go
7:51
Speaker 1: outside in the woods and chop the woods for the fires.
7:56
Speaker 1: And when I was very young, we had we did
7:58
Speaker 1: not have electric stough. We didn't get an electric stove
8:01
Speaker 1: to about the sixties, right, And my great grandmother and
8:03
Speaker 1: my grandma always thinking on a iron a cast iron stove.
8:07
Speaker 1: And I will never forget that stow was about fifty
8:09
Speaker 1: eight and that stove had to be constantly stoked with
8:12
Speaker 1: wood and coal. And I would go out and have
8:15
Speaker 1: to get the color scuttle for cold even in the snow,
8:17
Speaker 1: in the cold weather, and stoked that wood burning stove.
8:22
Speaker 1: That stove heated the kitchen. It had a side um
8:26
Speaker 1: a container where you boiled water, where you had constantly
8:29
Speaker 1: hot boiling water for the house for house flow duties.
8:33
Speaker 1: So this was a very important thing in my life.
8:35
Speaker 1: And so all these chores just led to to the
8:39
Speaker 1: good conservative, old fashioned values and clarities that people have
8:44
Speaker 1: in the South when they are black and growing up
8:46
Speaker 1: in the black segregated jim Growth South. I mean we
8:51
Speaker 1: then the Civil Rights Law was signed over the nineteen
8:55
Speaker 1: but I grew up in this great household from the
8:57
Speaker 1: fifties and into sixty three. It by sixty or three
9:00
Speaker 1: I was in high school. I think I was in
9:02
Speaker 1: the tenth grade. So it was just it was just
9:04
Speaker 1: a very wonderful world. Uh. My grandmother, she she was
9:09
Speaker 1: a domestic maid at Duke University for fifty years. She
9:13
Speaker 1: finally retired and the last thirty years her last she
9:16
Speaker 1: was retired, but she just got up and she was
9:20
Speaker 1: like a pioneer woman. She was strong. You know, you
9:22
Speaker 1: would have these images of pioneer women. These women can
9:25
Speaker 1: do anything. They can cook, they can squirrel kind of
9:28
Speaker 1: grab it, skinner squirrel, make a squirrel, stew Brunswick, still
9:32
Speaker 1: out of the squirrel. You know they're killo squirrel. Yeah,
9:39
Speaker 1: and just do all everything and plus do all the laundry.
9:43
Speaker 1: The household laundry, cook clean, scrub, sit down, read her missionary.
9:49
Speaker 1: Help get up on Sunday morning, cook, cook a pad
9:51
Speaker 1: of biscuits for me before the church, come home after
9:55
Speaker 1: church and cook the afternoon supper fried chicken and greens,
9:59
Speaker 1: a string beans and sweet potatoes, and just it's just
10:03
Speaker 1: a simple world. The world was a world that had
10:06
Speaker 1: foundations that carried I've carried on throughout my life. So
10:09
Speaker 1: so the so the fact that your great grandmother and
10:11
Speaker 1: your grandmother raised you and do them that really laid
10:15
Speaker 1: the foundation for who you are to day versus your parents. Absolutely,
10:19
Speaker 1: but my past were always into my life. My mother
10:21
Speaker 1: and father lived in d C. And they were not
10:23
Speaker 1: domestic workers. They was a great grade level government workers.
10:29
Speaker 1: And they always supported my my upbringing, my schooling, and
10:33
Speaker 1: they gave me everything I wanted. They would send money
10:34
Speaker 1: down to my grandmother every two weeks from my you
10:37
Speaker 1: know books, I had wonderful clothes. I had the first
10:42
Speaker 1: set of world book encyclopedias on my street. That was
10:46
Speaker 1: I was very proud of that. I could throw it
10:48
Speaker 1: all out there come on the day for typewriters, record players,
10:56
Speaker 1: and supplement allowance so I could then go to stop
10:59
Speaker 1: going to the library to read Vogue. I would go
11:01
Speaker 1: by Vogue. It came out twice a month in the sixties.
11:05
Speaker 1: This is really published on the first and the fifteenth
11:07
Speaker 1: of every month, and that was the feat. And I
11:08
Speaker 1: would go across town on Sundays when it was coming
11:12
Speaker 1: out the magazine. I looked forward. That was my big
11:14
Speaker 1: you know, outing to go buy Vogue magazine. So I
11:17
Speaker 1: think I had a privileged upbringing, although I was in
11:19
Speaker 1: a very restrained space in the world of blackness, in
11:25
Speaker 1: the segregated South. But but in that the whole process,
11:28
Speaker 1: the creative process, you know, when I want. That's all
11:31
Speaker 1: this just keeps. You were allowed to be you. Yes, yeah,
11:36
Speaker 1: you're perfectly, you said perfectly. I was allowed to be me.
11:40
Speaker 1: My grandmother did not. As long as I did the
11:42
Speaker 1: right thing, I could just see anything. My grandmother gave
11:46
Speaker 1: me free reign. And I sat back and I had
11:49
Speaker 1: a room with my own and I read Vogue, and
11:52
Speaker 1: I listened to Laura Nie you know, Leoo, Nina Simone, Mozart, Beethoven,
11:56
Speaker 1: Mi Haleo Jackson. I listened to my records. I had
12:00
Speaker 1: my own world and books, books for my friends. I
12:03
Speaker 1: had some friends, but books for my friends. And Vogue
12:06
Speaker 1: was my friends. I mean, I I lived for Vogue magazine.
12:10
Speaker 1: Now you but you talk about some nasty kids and bullying,
12:15
Speaker 1: and when we look back on you know, everybody thinks
12:17
Speaker 1: like bullying and started no recently bullying. No no, no, no,
12:21
Speaker 1: no no no that it was awful. But you know what,
12:23
Speaker 1: when when I go back home now and see my
12:26
Speaker 1: friends I've maintained good friends from high school, I can
12:29
Speaker 1: look at them and say, hey, look look at me. Now,
12:31
Speaker 1: how you doing. I'm doing. I'm out of the world.
12:34
Speaker 1: You know. I've got a book. I've had a documentary
12:36
Speaker 1: called Gospel. According to Andre I went there and showed
12:39
Speaker 1: it in the hillside of high school. I showed it
12:41
Speaker 1: in one of their great weeks. They had me there
12:43
Speaker 1: for three days. We showed the film, We had events
12:45
Speaker 1: around it. They gave me the man, gave me the
12:47
Speaker 1: see to the kidding and a proclamation, etcetera, etcetera. So
12:50
Speaker 1: you know, when you go to those those high school unions,
12:53
Speaker 1: they look I'm okay, I'm okay, you know, and I
12:58
Speaker 1: can feel you okay. I like to believe that. Uh.
13:01
Speaker 1: One of the money One of the best lines of
13:02
Speaker 1: your book was said, you know you in your seventies,
13:04
Speaker 1: but you feel like you're twenty nine. That's that's my
13:07
Speaker 1: favorite line, because I tell people that, you know, it's
13:09
Speaker 1: it's it's a mindset. It's it's how you, how you walk,
13:13
Speaker 1: how you communicate. I'm not trying. You're not trying to
13:15
Speaker 1: say you being twenty nine. You just said the mentality,
13:18
Speaker 1: the mindset. I am fresh. Come on, tell me about it,
13:22
Speaker 1: Tell them about it. I wake up every day ready
13:25
Speaker 1: to learn something new. I attacked a fresh I'm still
13:30
Speaker 1: learning ledge and thank god I had early on this
13:35
Speaker 1: passion for books and book reading. When I turned the
13:38
Speaker 1: page of a book in this pandemic, if I'm sitting
13:41
Speaker 1: down with the book, it is a happy moment for
13:42
Speaker 1: me to sit down on my front porch and turn
13:45
Speaker 1: the page of a new book that's coming into mail
13:47
Speaker 1: from Amazon. I mean, I just got a whole little
13:49
Speaker 1: James Baldwin books. I think that James Baldwin, what he
13:53
Speaker 1: did and wrote and said in the sixties is so
13:56
Speaker 1: relevant today. So all the summer I've been reading everything
13:59
Speaker 1: I to get my hands owned by James Balwin, including
14:02
Speaker 1: his last interview before he passed away, and that came
14:07
Speaker 1: to me last week and I've been just reading and
14:10
Speaker 1: I'm just every day you can learn something new. I
14:14
Speaker 1: was young. I love fashion. By the way, I always say,
14:19
Speaker 1: as Judge Judy says, they don't keep me here for
14:21
Speaker 1: my looks. They keep me because I'm smart. Okay, well
14:25
Speaker 1: that's my manta. That is my manta. They don't keep
14:28
Speaker 1: me here from my looks. They keep you because I'm
14:30
Speaker 1: it's smart and in so many ways, you know, learning French,
14:32
Speaker 1: which you know, which allows you to go over to France,
14:35
Speaker 1: and participating the fluently participate in the fashion world. But
14:40
Speaker 1: more important, before we in this break, I wanted to
14:42
Speaker 1: talk about you graduated from HBCU North Carolina Central University,
14:47
Speaker 1: and uh, was that significant for you then or is
14:51
Speaker 1: it more significant for you now that you graduated from HBCU.
14:56
Speaker 1: Itchef for me now because I'm proud of that. I
14:59
Speaker 1: was out of n cc U and I that's where
15:02
Speaker 1: i got the scholarship to go to Brown University. So
15:06
Speaker 1: I'm proud of that. It means a lot to me.
15:09
Speaker 1: Why did you write this book? Why did you write
15:10
Speaker 1: this book? I wrote the book because I felt that
15:12
Speaker 1: I was approaching the seventh decade of my life, and
15:15
Speaker 1: I felt that I had to leave a legacy recorded
15:18
Speaker 1: by me factual. I had so many stories to tell
15:21
Speaker 1: that were great. I had so many scars that I
15:25
Speaker 1: healed my wounds, healed it. Um. You know, I experienced racism, agism,
15:32
Speaker 1: sexism in my career, and I just felt that it
15:34
Speaker 1: was important. And it's luckily the book came out of
15:37
Speaker 1: the time, the moment when everyone is talking about systemic
15:41
Speaker 1: racism in our country, uh, you know, tearing down the monuments,
15:44
Speaker 1: the Confederate flag, our terrible president, the whole thing. And Um,
15:50
Speaker 1: I felt that I had to write this book because
15:53
Speaker 1: I had done it. I had participated in a great
15:55
Speaker 1: documentary that came out of me called The Gospel. According
15:59
Speaker 1: to Andre, that's the love that I saw from the
16:01
Speaker 1: people who watched that documentary, not only famous people, but
16:05
Speaker 1: just people in the normal people walking the street. So
16:07
Speaker 1: I saw your documentary. I love it so much, so
16:10
Speaker 1: much that gave me the confidence to write the book.
16:12
Speaker 1: The book was a no brainer from me. I sat
16:14
Speaker 1: down and wrote the book all from memory. I don't
16:16
Speaker 1: have notes, I don't have diaries, I don't have journals.
16:19
Speaker 1: It comes all from my memory bank. Well, you know
16:22
Speaker 1: it's really I can tail because it's like a little
16:25
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18:22
Speaker 1: E R dot ai. Like when you come to me,
18:26
Speaker 1: did you write? You know? And that that's some beautiful
18:27
Speaker 1: people realize when you write the book, you know first
18:31
Speaker 1: you're just right out and the general thoughts that you
18:33
Speaker 1: remember you know the layers story dropping in there, like
18:37
Speaker 1: when you were shopping in pairs with Diana Ross. That's right,
18:42
Speaker 1: tell us about that. What a moment. That was a
18:44
Speaker 1: revelation for me. Donna Ross. The first time I ever
18:47
Speaker 1: met Donna Ross, I was saving lunch with her in
18:50
Speaker 1: Paris at this famous restaurant called Maxines. It's been I
18:54
Speaker 1: know that I've eaten there. I've eat there. Yeah. And
18:57
Speaker 1: for people who don't know that it's in films, Maxines
18:59
Speaker 1: has been in films of the film Gig, a great
19:02
Speaker 1: Technicolor film in the fifties. Maxines is a moment of style.
19:07
Speaker 1: And on a Saturday morning, we were going into Maxines,
19:10
Speaker 1: Benny Cadrew and Francois Cattrew and I and Pia card
19:14
Speaker 1: and Diana Ross was coming in for lunch and she
19:16
Speaker 1: came in with this amazing for co to the ground.
19:20
Speaker 1: We had lunch and we went straight to the jeweler
19:22
Speaker 1: store and I was so impressed because it was the
19:25
Speaker 1: first time I had ever witnessed. You know, I was young,
19:28
Speaker 1: I was in Paris, I was twenty seven. Our black
19:31
Speaker 1: woman went into a very fancy jewelry store in Paris
19:35
Speaker 1: of a vote ball. They didn't asked for a credit card.
19:39
Speaker 1: They said yes, Ms. They knew she was Miss Ross.
19:41
Speaker 1: Of course this could have been an impostor drag queen.
19:44
Speaker 1: They sent the jewels to a hotel. No checks were issued,
19:48
Speaker 1: no bill of sale, no questions, Miss Ross. You will
19:52
Speaker 1: get these bracelets in your hotel by five o'clock. And
19:56
Speaker 1: you know, of course they would. They did. They She
19:59
Speaker 1: asked what the prices were, and then she turned and
20:01
Speaker 1: she said, would you like a little present? And I said, oh, no,
20:03
Speaker 1: thank you, no, thank you? No said no, come on,
20:06
Speaker 1: you said no. Well, you weren't allowed to take gift.
20:09
Speaker 1: My company was one, so I thought if I got
20:13
Speaker 1: a bracelet from Donna Ross and they see, they tired me.
20:16
Speaker 1: So it was ethically incorrected me to take the bracelet.
20:18
Speaker 1: But I was so impressed that a woman of color
20:21
Speaker 1: could go into Paris, walk into a store, no matter,
20:24
Speaker 1: and just be respected the way Donna Ross was. They
20:26
Speaker 1: didn't say, oh, may we see your credit cards? Or
20:29
Speaker 1: maybe we see your identity? They maybe see your passport,
20:33
Speaker 1: We could we call your bank. It was a sadday afternoon.
20:36
Speaker 1: They recognized her and they said, Ms. Ross, these will
20:40
Speaker 1: be delivered to you this evening for you to wear
20:42
Speaker 1: for what we were going out that night for dinner.
20:44
Speaker 1: And they were delivered and she came to Dynner these bracelets.
20:47
Speaker 1: I tell you, I'm talking to Andre Leon Tally and
20:49
Speaker 1: the book The chefon Trenches. Andrea, I like to believe
20:52
Speaker 1: that it all kind of started for you in eighteen
20:55
Speaker 1: seventy four at the Metropolitan Museum or Art Institute, and
20:58
Speaker 1: a fantastic take lady who took you under the wing.
21:01
Speaker 1: I want to say her name, Diane Freeland Daneland, Diane Lander, Diane.
21:11
Speaker 1: I know I had to get that name right there,
21:14
Speaker 1: because this day, this young lady, she's the juice for you, man,
21:18
Speaker 1: She's the juice. She she was. She was the Empress,
21:22
Speaker 1: the oracle, she was the mountain top. She was the
21:25
Speaker 1: most important fashion woman at her time. She was the
21:29
Speaker 1: fashion editor Vogue from sixty one to seventy one. She'd
21:32
Speaker 1: been at Harper's FAA for twenty eight years as the
21:35
Speaker 1: only senior fashion editor. She made images that are now
21:40
Speaker 1: legendary US are and in Vogue, and everyone who is
21:43
Speaker 1: anyone who's in fashion today or who wants to say
21:47
Speaker 1: they've got styled, had to be approved by Diana Freeland,
21:50
Speaker 1: and there I was half volunteer in seventy four for
21:54
Speaker 1: six weeks on a show called Hollywood Design, where I
21:57
Speaker 1: learned everything from Diana Freeland. I mean, there's a school
22:01
Speaker 1: of realing, and in school is You don't go to
22:02
Speaker 1: school and get her a certificate. You just be in
22:04
Speaker 1: her presence and you learned by listening. I learned from
22:08
Speaker 1: her by listening the way she described clothes, the way
22:12
Speaker 1: she described the linings. She gave as much focus to
22:15
Speaker 1: the lining of addresses she did to the outside of
22:18
Speaker 1: a dress. Her shoes were polished with the souls of
22:24
Speaker 1: her shoes, not the uppers. Her souls were polished with
22:29
Speaker 1: her hinocerous form. I don't know why, but her souls
22:33
Speaker 1: of her shoes were polished like the oppers her with
22:36
Speaker 1: five dollar bills. They didn't have uber cars and limos
22:40
Speaker 1: at the curb. People took taxis. In New York. Her maid,
22:43
Speaker 1: French Yvonne what's her name with part would iron her
22:47
Speaker 1: five dollar bills to put in her envelope evening bags
22:51
Speaker 1: when she went out for dinner, so she'd have money
22:52
Speaker 1: to get a cab home. She had her newspapers ironed
22:57
Speaker 1: so she didn't want to read the wrinkled newspaper in
22:59
Speaker 1: the bath up she had the newspapers on. She had
23:03
Speaker 1: the souls of her shoes. Pol Now what it sounds superficial,
23:07
Speaker 1: but what is does that stand for? Discipline? Maintenance, cleanliness
23:12
Speaker 1: is close to godliness. This is what she stood for.
23:15
Speaker 1: These were rituals that came from an Edwardian. She grew
23:18
Speaker 1: up at the end of the nineteen nineties in Paris,
23:23
Speaker 1: and this is just the kind of ritual that she
23:25
Speaker 1: believed in the way my grandma believed in waxing apology
23:28
Speaker 1: floors with pastewax. These are the things you do to
23:31
Speaker 1: keep yourself up, to keep your keep your values up.
23:35
Speaker 1: You you see apology floor, you're happy. She grew up
23:40
Speaker 1: when she was she was born in eighteen nineties, so
23:43
Speaker 1: she srew up at the end of the Aedwardian area
23:45
Speaker 1: that was like in Paris, so the Ballot Park. She
23:50
Speaker 1: that she was a young girl at the Bellot Parc,
23:52
Speaker 1: you know, when they had Cortis on the coronations of
23:56
Speaker 1: the King, and she saw all these wonderful things and
23:59
Speaker 1: she she just loved the horses and the way the
24:02
Speaker 1: horses were decked out, and they were just as decked
24:05
Speaker 1: out as the people, the saddles and the reins and
24:07
Speaker 1: the horse riders. Everything she described was so narrative. She
24:13
Speaker 1: told every dress in an exhibit would have a story
24:16
Speaker 1: behind it because every dress, who is wearing his dress?
24:21
Speaker 1: Where does she wear it? Who was she? And what
24:23
Speaker 1: does she mean through the world. That's what you know.
24:26
Speaker 1: The interesting thing in reading your book with every page
24:29
Speaker 1: I turned was a nugget to me, and really, you know,
24:33
Speaker 1: golden nugget. I hope a golden golden is no I
24:36
Speaker 1: empire right here, my friend, this is golden nuggets. He Okay,
24:40
Speaker 1: So you know I said when I when I say
24:42
Speaker 1: that is the fact that it could have been expanded more.
24:45
Speaker 1: It could have been more than just Rashan. There's a
24:49
Speaker 1: third book in me because I had the contract and
24:52
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the contract I had from Pendom thing
24:55
Speaker 1: when rabbing the Valentime. But the contract said I only
24:58
Speaker 1: had to write eighty thousands words. I could have written
25:01
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty. But this is the book they
25:04
Speaker 1: wanted to They wanted to publish a book for a
25:06
Speaker 1: certain size and you know the format. But I could
25:09
Speaker 1: have written a hundred and sixty thousand, I could have
25:11
Speaker 1: still have been writing to this day and still could
25:13
Speaker 1: be writing, because that's there's interesting stories like you know,
25:16
Speaker 1: like the whole period when you started out of course,
25:19
Speaker 1: you know, and then uh you basically was starving. Then
25:22
Speaker 1: that Christmas period when when she told you not that,
25:25
Speaker 1: don't go home, she said, don't go home, don't go home.
25:28
Speaker 1: There's nothing at home, and it's really true. You know,
25:30
Speaker 1: when you go back, man kind of breaks your vague,
25:32
Speaker 1: breaks your motivation. You fall back and old habits, and
25:35
Speaker 1: that's what she's telling you. And then that whole Parish run,
25:39
Speaker 1: which is a genius period of your life, I feel,
25:42
Speaker 1: because the zenous moment of my life because of the
25:44
Speaker 1: fact that first of all, your black man, tall black
25:46
Speaker 1: man speaking, only one on the front road, the only
25:49
Speaker 1: person in the front road black. But then but then
25:51
Speaker 1: that's when it turns dark in your life, you know,
25:54
Speaker 1: the star because people of jealous and racism has come fast.
25:58
Speaker 1: People calling me Queen Kong. Yes, allegedly, one girl called
26:01
Speaker 1: me Queen Kong. And it took the Palma Picasso, the
26:03
Speaker 1: daughter of the famous artist Casso, to tell me, and
26:06
Speaker 1: she said, you know, this girl is going around Paris
26:08
Speaker 1: and call you Queen Kong and people are laughing at you,
26:11
Speaker 1: but I love you, and I said okay, and then
26:12
Speaker 1: I just kept that bottle up. And I never told
26:14
Speaker 1: me anyone about that until I had this documentary and
26:18
Speaker 1: I sat down and talked about it in the Vogue
26:21
Speaker 1: archives and I revealed that in twenty seventeen. And this
26:25
Speaker 1: this was a hurting thing. You know, this was hurting me.
26:27
Speaker 1: And then one of my bosses came and said, one
26:30
Speaker 1: day I stood up in the office and said, we
26:32
Speaker 1: heard you ben sleeping whatever designer in Paris men and
26:36
Speaker 1: women And I thought, well, God, that's that's what I
26:41
Speaker 1: would be, so busy am I study what is this?
26:44
Speaker 1: And then I realized how racists was. I recently had
26:48
Speaker 1: an email from the man saying what a great book
26:50
Speaker 1: it was, but he didn't know at that time how
26:53
Speaker 1: hurtfully was you know what I did. I went off
26:56
Speaker 1: and in the weeks later I resigned. I quit Women's
26:58
Speaker 1: with Daily and the door was open and I wouldn't
27:00
Speaker 1: have gotten to vote had I stayed in Women's but
27:02
Speaker 1: Daily in a position that I was in because I
27:04
Speaker 1: thought this story is gonna close, I went to the
27:07
Speaker 1: Madland Church this is a church where Joe swine Baker
27:10
Speaker 1: was funeralized in Paris. Then the three candles, right yeah,
27:15
Speaker 1: I lit the candles and I went back, wrote my
27:18
Speaker 1: letter of resignation, had it notarized at the British American
27:22
Speaker 1: Embassy the American town Flip, and then receipt sent it
27:25
Speaker 1: to the office because I thought I was smart. I
27:29
Speaker 1: thought I'd better have this letter to prove that I
27:31
Speaker 1: resigned and wasn't fired, because you know, they could say,
27:35
Speaker 1: oh well Andre was You know there was no money
27:40
Speaker 1: missing from the pettycash and they were already accused of
27:43
Speaker 1: me of stealing sketches from east and around and back
27:45
Speaker 1: office based on your relationship with DaVinci Right yeah, yeah, yeah,
27:50
Speaker 1: thank you. Don't give it right? Are you gonna give
27:56
Speaker 1: it right now? It's your world? Keep me, keep me rolling, right.
27:59
Speaker 1: I'm afraid. I ready to go, but I know I
28:01
Speaker 1: was gonna throw out one name, Badge, You're gonna correct
28:03
Speaker 1: me off. I save you. Oh I love it. I
28:13
Speaker 1: love it. You know that when your times you gotta
28:15
Speaker 1: say the name try. You can't go say you don't
28:18
Speaker 1: like the girls said safe verstafe birthstaye ye. Oh my god.
28:25
Speaker 1: I love it. You know, it's one part of the book.
28:28
Speaker 1: I loved that. I want to talk about your experience
28:32
Speaker 1: when you went to for one year only everybody, and
28:38
Speaker 1: that was a great moment for me. That was you know,
28:41
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I loved. I love I'll tell
28:42
Speaker 1: you why I loved it. You said, Okay, they didn't
28:44
Speaker 1: know what your family didn't know anything about what you
28:47
Speaker 1: were doing in Paris. But once they found out you
28:50
Speaker 1: work forever and yet our baby, that made it. Baby
28:54
Speaker 1: that they made it. He made it, he made I
28:56
Speaker 1: made it. That was the greatest year. Mrs Johnson was
28:59
Speaker 1: a great woman. She was a fabulous lady. Oh my goodness,
29:03
Speaker 1: Mrs Johnson, I learned someone. She has a style. And
29:06
Speaker 1: you know, she started the Havny Fashion Fair idea and
29:09
Speaker 1: she took it all through all over the country to
29:11
Speaker 1: Virgin Islands. These fashion shows, she showed the world what
29:15
Speaker 1: style could be. Her fashion fair shows were legendary and
29:20
Speaker 1: she would go to Paris and buy all these extraordinary clothes.
29:23
Speaker 1: She didn't sit buy a little doll suit. She knew
29:26
Speaker 1: that the people when they went him to show, they
29:27
Speaker 1: wanted to see extravagance, fantasy. She'd buy the most extract
29:33
Speaker 1: extraordinary pieces and paid for them for a price. And
29:37
Speaker 1: she started doing it in the fifties. So before I
29:39
Speaker 1: got to Paris, she was the only black person on
29:41
Speaker 1: the front row, and they respected her pocketbook and her
29:45
Speaker 1: style and her expertise. She was highly respected and revered
29:49
Speaker 1: in the world of fashion in Paris. Mr sell arom Mrs.
29:53
Speaker 1: When I got to Ebony magazine, Mr Johnson said to me,
29:56
Speaker 1: and you've got to get me a picture. What do
29:59
Speaker 1: you sell a wrong? I want to have a picture
30:01
Speaker 1: with you, and he sell a wrong and I saw
30:04
Speaker 1: looks war. She hired me just to get that picture. Well,
30:07
Speaker 1: it's the first time you went the pats on the concorde. Backstage,
30:11
Speaker 1: I had the picture with the cell aron and Mrs
30:14
Speaker 1: Johnson and myself, and I had that boto on. I
30:17
Speaker 1: had that same hat on with round George your money
30:22
Speaker 1: suit Copton side had that hat on. Well, let me skip.
30:26
Speaker 1: I know we're running a time, but I had to
30:28
Speaker 1: get this one story. And then I'm mad because I
30:30
Speaker 1: looked at there's no picture of you wearing this, So
30:33
Speaker 1: I was kind of mad at you. Here it was
30:35
Speaker 1: it was the when you when you broke code and
30:38
Speaker 1: you went to this black Tide event wearing that gown
30:43
Speaker 1: over the shirt in those gray sacks. Yeah, back bathrop,
30:46
Speaker 1: bathroom bath. Carlos cash me a bathroom breasting down and
30:50
Speaker 1: I had to go across. I didn't have time to
30:52
Speaker 1: go home and change, and carl said, put this on.
30:54
Speaker 1: This is will go. We gotta get take one of
30:56
Speaker 1: my white shirts I had on great trips where one
30:58
Speaker 1: of my white shirts in a black time. It was
31:00
Speaker 1: a scandal. Everyone everyone went to Maccines. Everyone in time.
31:04
Speaker 1: It was a scandal. A black man and a black
31:07
Speaker 1: side dinner in Maccines with a dressing gown on. I listen,
31:11
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a bathrobe. It was a Kashmir black
31:17
Speaker 1: pipe in satin friends silk, satin tassels, and it was dope.
31:24
Speaker 1: And I walked into Macines and the Red Sea party
31:29
Speaker 1: and the jaws dropped. Oh of Paris. And the next
31:33
Speaker 1: day I got on the phone with my best friend
31:35
Speaker 1: better Cat. She says, Andre, you don't even know. That's
31:37
Speaker 1: all they talked about. They are a shock, but it's
31:41
Speaker 1: very amusing. It was a sort of social scandal. And
31:44
Speaker 1: I don't have any pictures of because no one thought
31:46
Speaker 1: to take pictures. That was someone drew it, Carl drewid.
31:50
Speaker 1: But I don't know what that drawing is. It's probably
31:52
Speaker 1: the spirit. You did a drawing on it. The best
31:56
Speaker 1: story in the book bear story in the book. And
31:58
Speaker 1: I don't have a photo want my favorite photo. I'm
32:01
Speaker 1: gonna just let you know. That was a page of
32:03
Speaker 1: one seventy seven when you Splendid molten is shot in
32:07
Speaker 1: Paris and June or thirteen. That picture right there, my friend,
32:11
Speaker 1: I hope you have that framed in your home. That
32:13
Speaker 1: is you have the your You're on the balcony and uh,
32:17
Speaker 1: your Rafloren dinner suit. I go, oh my god, oh
32:22
Speaker 1: my god, oh my god, oh my god, andret all
32:27
Speaker 1: those clothes, all those closes here. That right there, that's
32:31
Speaker 1: a bad of anybody. That's a bad look right there.
32:34
Speaker 1: But that is pure that I have made, my man,
32:38
Speaker 1: because I've been in Paris. I you got the I
32:41
Speaker 1: want to thank you for coming on my show. I
32:43
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed our conversation, enjoy talking to you, and
32:45
Speaker 1: I want to come back in your show. Absolutely absolutely,
32:49
Speaker 1: thank you, my friend. You stay safe out there and
32:50
Speaker 1: I keep I'll support this on my social media. I
32:53
Speaker 1: supported on my fan club. Get the word out plus
32:56
Speaker 1: my wife know you Okay, thank you for your wife,
33:00
Speaker 1: thank you, my friend, by bye, thank you bye bye.
33:04
Speaker 1: I'm Rashan McDonald. Hi. If you want to hear more
33:06
Speaker 1: money Making Conversation interviews, please please go to Money Making
33:10
Speaker 1: Conversation dot com. I'm Rashan McDonald. I'm your host. In
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