This is Fresh Air. I'm David Beancouli, professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, Infra Terry Gross.

We're going to remember the influential and larger-than-life fashion editor Andre Leon Talley.

He died Tuesday at the age of 73.

An enthusiastic champion of fashion, he was the first black man to hold the position of Creative Director at Vogue Magazine.

He worked there for much of his career, first as fashion news director and later as editor at large.

At six feet six inches tall, often wearing capes and calf tans created for him by some of the world's top designers, he was an unmistakable sight.

Talley grew up in Durham, North Carolina in the Jim Crow era.

His grandmother, who raised him, was a maid who worked for Duke University.

The fashion he was exposed to came largely from what people wore to church on Sundays.

Until, at age nine, he discovered Vogue Magazine.

After getting a scholarship to Brown University and a master's degree in French literature, he moved to New York, worked at Andy Warhol's magazine interview, and was mentored by former Vogue editor, Diana Vrelin.

Terry Gross spoke to Andre Leon Talley in 2018 when he was the subject of the documentary, the gospel according to Andre Leon Talley.

Andre Leon Talley, welcome to Fresh Air.

Let's start with, how were you introduced to the world of fashion?

Well, from an early age, I discovered fashion through the pages of Vogue.

I went to the public library in Durham, North Carolina, and I was about ten years old, maybe nine.

I discovered this magazine called Vogue.

In those days, it came out on the first and the 15th of every month.

The editor was Diana Vrelin.

This was my skate world.

When I was a young boy, I grew up in my grandmother's home in Durham, North Carolina, and bought his home.

She was a maid at Duke University.

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