Talley was the rare example of someone who wasn’t born into wealth, fame or beauty but who nevertheless managed to live a life filled with people and objects so spectacular that aspirants were willing to pay a premium to be associated with it all. The treasure trove of his kaftans, art and luxury luggage was sold to benefit a pair of Baptist churches attended by Talley during his life. (He died at the start of 2022 at age 73.) There were 66 items in the live sale, and a further 350 in an online auction that ended on February 16.

The live sale soared above estimates; official predictions for estate auctions along these lines are set deliberately low by auction houses. (For instance, a pair of Joan Didion’s Celine sunglasses recently auctioned in Hudson, New York, were listed for around US$1,000 and ended up selling for US$27,000.) Even as the live sale concluded, bidding at the online Talley sale continued to spiral upwards.

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A new crowd for Christie’s

At the evening preview of the sale on February 9, at Christie’s in New York, fashion editors wore black and influencers wore everything else. (Fittingly, at the check-in, social media types had their own line.) The onlookers swapped gossip about the mounds of luggage and throw pillows so lovingly lit and artfully arranged.

Selfies were taken with many items – which is presumably also what will happen with frequency when they find their new homes. Multiple Christie’s team members remarked on how the attendees at the party were much more diverse (read: black) than the stodgy, mostly white art crowd that usually shows up for such events.

The party and sale are bittersweet triumphs. Talley would have surely been proud of how his items sung in this final gala performance. But the lovely items came at a cost: at the end of his life, he lost his connections to the people who had given him many of them and created the memories around them.

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There was an amethyst geode the size of a cocker spaniel. And there were his signature kaftans, many by top designers, looming on walls and hung gloriously amid the crowd.

Talley was a wide man, but he was also tall – 198cm (6ft and 6 inches), to be exact – so the vast amount of fabric in these robes made all other humans in the room look tiny and insignificant. In memory as in life, he is simply larger. The kaftans ranged in estimates amid the low thousand dollars, though several sold for more than US$15,000.

There was artwork featuring the other great mentors of Talley’s life, including an Annie Leibovitz portrait of Anna Wintour that auctioneer Richard Nelson said was “hung prominently in his home”. It sold for US$25,200. A photo of Talley at a party with Andy Warhol went for US$13,000, and a spectacular Warhol mixed-media portrait of the late Vogue editor Diana Vreeland on a rearing horse, called Diana Vreeland Rampant, went for US$94,500. (It had a presale estimate of US$30,000 to US$50,000.)

A lonely retirement

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But he needed the generosity of privileged powerhouses such as Lagerfeld, Warhol, Vreeland and Wintour, to open the door and save a space for him. In his memoir, The Chiffon Trenches, he tells of glorious years travelling with Lagerfeld and giddy times putting Vogue together with Wintour. For decades, he was one of the only people Wintour trusted at her side as she shopped or got dressed for major events.

The problem in relying on the grace of powerful people with towering egos is that grace is what they all eventually lack. Talley was shut out by Lagerfeld in the mid-2010s after an awkward conversation at a party; he was stripped from the invite list to Chanel fashion shows, where Lagerfeld was then creative director. The two never spoke again. Talley and Wintour ran afoul of one another in 2018, when she took away his spot at the Met Gala red carpet. According to his book, Talley spent his final years living in a rented house in White Plains, New York, running out of money, isolated and removed from his once-commanding life in fashion.

The Chiffon Trenches ends bitterly. Talley admits to feeling abandoned by the fashion community – not offered work, not paid appropriately for gigs and not receiving the glamorous invitations that used to embody his lifestyle.