André Leon Talley, the larger-than-life former Vogue editor, has died at 73. Talley was a man of grand pronouncements, extravagant capes, and friends in design studios from New York to Paris—Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Diane von Furstenberg, Karl Lagerfeld, and many more. When the news of his death from a heart attack broke late last night, many of his friends in fashion and beyond took to social media to express their grief, and a theme emerged. The “pharaoh of fabulosity,” as another Vogue staffer once dubbed Talley, was also the industry’s biggest champion and booster, the first editor backstage, quick with encouraging advice or a course correction. His enthusiasm was prodigious.

“The loss of André is felt by so many of us today: the designers he enthusiastically cheered on every season, and who loved him for it; the generations he inspired to work in the industry, seeing a figure who broke boundaries while never forgetting where he started from; those who knew fashion, and Vogue, simply because of him; and, not forgetting, the multitude of colleagues over the years who were consistently buoyed by every new discovery of André’s, which he would discuss loudly, and volubly—no one could make people more excited about the most seemingly insignificant fashion details than him. Even his stream of colorful faxes and emails were a highly anticipated event, something we all looked forward to,” said Anna Wintour. “Yet it’s the loss of André as my colleague and friend that I think of now; it’s immeasurable. He was magnificent and erudite and wickedly funny—mercurial, too. Like many decades-long relationships, there were complicated moments, but all I want to remember today, all I care about, is the brilliant and compassionate man who was a generous and loving friend to me and to my family for many, many years, and who we will all miss so much.”

In 2003, Talley wrote his first book ALT: A Memoir, which he followed up in 2020 with The Chiffon Trenches. His 2005 book ALT 365+ featured a year’s worth of captioned snapshots of his Vogue colleagues, fashion shows, and designers in repose, including a photo of Von Furstenberg swimming in her Connecticut pool. The book captured some of the irreverence and wit of his legendary faxes, which inspired the essential reading that was his StyleFax column in Vogue.

That old-school fixation aside, Talley came into his own in the age of the internet, as fashion became a form of mass entertainment. He was a big presence in the 2009 documentary The September Issue, which chronicled the making of the year’s biggest issue of Vogue, and the world at large got to know him as an opinionated judge on America’s Next Top Model circa 2010 and ’11. In more recent years, not a single celebrity said no to an Andre interview when they met him at his perch on the top of the stairs on the Met Gala red carpet. “He’s the Nelson Mandela of couture, the Kofi Annan of what you got on,” will.i.am declares in The Gospel According to André. This morning, a video of him cheering Rihanna on at the 2015 Gala was circling widely on social media. His advice to the superstar: “Walk the museum, and just drink the moment. Drink it! This is rare in life. You are so inspiring to so many people. You are going to inspire people in this dress!”