Nearly four years after the death of Vogue veteran and fashion icon André Leon Talley at the age of seventy-three, the native North Carolinian’s life and work are being memorialized in a new exhibition, André Leon Talley: Style is Forever, which opened on October 15 in Atlanta at the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film and in a smaller, more intimate setting inside the André Leon Talley Gallery at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah. Both locations showcase hundreds of garments and personal ephemera that Talley bequeathed to the Savannah College of Art and Design, including his bespoke caftans, photographs, and accessories. A printed companion catalog, produced by Rizzoli, features essays and anecdotes from those who crossed paths with the colorful Talley, including a foreword by SCAD president and founder Paula Wallace and the longtime Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour.
The seeds for the retrospective were planted years ago by Talley himself. “André and I actually began working on this exhibition long before COVID,” says SCAD FASH creative director Rafael Gomes. “He had an extraordinary vision. He wanted to curate it like a series of vignettes, each celebrating the designers who created bespoke pieces just for him. He imagined a wall of Manolo Blahnik and Roger Vivier shoes, a towering pile of Louis Vuitton luggage, kimonos suspended on a rod, and even a kind of labyrinth that would allow visitors to step inside his world.” The duo’s original plans were interrupted by the global pandemic and Talley’s passing. Remarkably, this iteration came to fruition because Talley chose to bequeath such a breadth of material upon his death. “We all felt an immense responsibility, not just to finish what he began, but to fully celebrate his tremendous legacy,” Gomes says. (An influence illuminated in a 2018 Garden & Gun profile by the late contributing editor Julia Reed, a dear friend of Talley’s.)
To begin, the team in charge agreed to keep Talley’s original idea of grouping items together by designer in order to illustrate the creative kismet between Talley and the many people who dressed him. Six-and-a-half-foot mannequins, a nod to Talley and his statuesque presence, were also commissioned from SCAD alumnus Stephen Hayes to be used throughout. “For me, curating this exhibition was not merely an act of display but a tribute to a pioneer who transformed fashion into a language of power, intellect, and beauty,” Gomes says.
In the process, Gomes still learned something new about his friend. “I was surprised by how methodical he was in preserving his life,” he explains. “Every caftan, note, and clipping was archived with clear intention. I realized that André was not simply living fashion; he was documenting history as he moved through it. He understood that visibility, especially as a Black man in fashion, carried immense responsibility. His careful preservation of his world was not vanity, but an act of legacy building.”
And it’s clear that Talley intended this visibility for SCAD. “André was a very dear friend of our president and founder Paula Wallace and deeply involved in the university for decades,” Gomes says. “He often said that SCAD celebrated him not only for who he was but for what he had to teach. I believe he wanted young creatives, especially those who may not fit a traditional mold, to look at these pieces and say, I can be part of this world.”
If there is one designer in the panorama of Talley’s life that defines all of this, Gomes says, it’s Ralph Rucci. “Their friendship was built on mutual admiration, intellect, and a shared devotion to beauty as a disciplined art form.” Gomes explains. “There is something profoundly spiritual in Rucci’s work that mirrors André’s belief in fashion as an act of devotion. To wear a Rucci creation was, for André, to inhabit a kind of sacred architecture, where mastery and meaning converge. It is the ultimate expression of his conviction that true style is born from integrity, intellect, and grace.”
André Leon Talley: Style Is Forever will run in Savannah until January 11, 2026, and in Atlanta until March 1, 2026. Afterward, the exhibition will travel to the SCAD FASH Lacoste museum in France, and later return to Savannah to join SCAD’s permanent collection.
