When Paula Wallace, president and co-founder of the Savannah College of Art and Design, proposed to André Leon Talley that the school create an exhibition devoted to his wardrobe, the redoubtable fashion editor exclaimed, “It must be done!” In fact, since that conversation, SCAD has mounted three such shows, each entitled “André Leon Talley: Style Is Forever.” The first opened at the SCAD Museum of Art, in Savannah; the second at the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film, in Atlanta; and now the third opens on Wednesday at the university’s study-abroad campus, SCAD FASH Lacoste, in Provence, France.
This latest iteration of the show offers a more intimate, contemplative experience of Talley as the stone walls of the medieval space “create a different rhythm for the narrative,” explains Rafael Gomes, the creative director of all the SCAD FASH museums. To the presentation of personal items, all culled from the trove of clothing and ephemera (photos, letters, books) that Talley bequeathed to SCAD in 2022, Gomes has added some of the gifts to the school’s permanent collection that the style arbiter coaxed out of his designer friends. Animating the installation further are looks worn by members of Talley’s female cohort—Anne Hathaway, Renée Zellweger, Anna Wintour—placed next to images of them consorting with him while they are dressed in the same finery they’ve loaned to the display. These supplementary objects “capture André in conversation and collaboration with the remarkable circle of women who were central to his world,” says Gomes.
