Talley's column, "Life With Andr," appears monthly in American Vogue magazine.
It details the fashion editor's visits to couture designers' studios such as Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera.
He began writing in 1998, and the inside look at high fashion's obligatory air-kissing and gushing is now a magazine staple.
Talley is also a fashion commentator during the Academy Awards.
Talley made the one-day stop in Philadelphia to speak to University of the Arts students at the request of fashion professor Emil De John, who met Talley in February during New York's Fashion Week. Talley struck up a conversation about the bespectacled professor's trademark vintage briefcase, and De John asked Talley to come speak to his students. Talley agreed, so on the day after the Phillies won the World Series, he spoke to a room of fashionistas bedecked in red.
Those entrenched in Philadelphia's style scene also filled the rows. Eager to meet him were Mary K. Dougherty, owner of two Nicole Miller boutiques; Marissa Guaglione-Stevens of Fashion Group International; Joan Pileggi, former owner of Pileggi boutique; and Andrea Chila, the current owner of Pileggi.
Talley wore a navy blue Giorgio Armani suit (the same one he wore to Yves St. Laurent's funeral in Paris in June), and velvet Manolo Blahnik sandals.
In an accent that sounded more British than Southern, Talley talked about his early years growing up with his grandmother, Bennie Francis Davis, in Durham, N.C.
With her blue-tinted hair and sharp, navy blue suits, Davis taught Talley the details of fine dress.
"We didn't have a lot of money, and she may have had three pairs of shoes, but you could believe those were the best shoes," Talley said.
Talley decided when he was a preteen that he wanted to be a fashion editor. "I was always reading Vogue!"
