The chiffon trenches : a memoir / André Leon Talley.

Discover what truly happens behind the scenes in the world of high fashion in this detailed memoir from style icon, bestselling author, and former Vogue creative director André Leon Talley. During Talley's first magazine job assisting Andy Warhol at Interview, a fateful meeting with Karl Lagerfeld began a decades-long friendship with the enigmatic, often caustic designer. Propelled into the upper echelons by his knowledge and adoration of fashion, Talley moved to Paris as bureau chief of John Fairchild's Women's Wear Daily, befriending fashion's most important designers. But as Talley made friends, he also made enemies. A racially tinged encounter at the house of Yves Saint Laurent sent him back to New York and into the offices of Vogue under Grace Mirabella. There, he developed an unlikely but intimate friendship with Anna Wintour, and as she rose to the top of Vogue's masthead, Talley became the most influential man in fashion. This is a candid look at the who's who of the last 50 years of fashion, and proof that fact is always fascinatingly more devilish than fiction. Talley's engaging memoir tells not only how he survived, but thrived--despite racism, illicit rumors, and all the other challenges of this notoriously cutthroat industry--to become one of the most legendary voices and faces in fashion.--Adapted from publisher information.