At a towering 6'6", Andre Leon Talley, editor-at-large of Vogue magazine, is larger-than-life in person and in the fashion world. Gayle talks with Andre about his lifelong love of fashion—from his childhood days in North Carolina to his current front-row status at important fashion shows worldwide.

Growing up in Durham, North Carolina, Andre says he knew as a boy that he loved fashion. "At an early age I discovered the beauty in pictures in Vogue magazine and Ebony magazine, and I would read The New York Times," Andre says. "I had to make my own world within my world because I was an only child." During high school, Andre says he was noticed for his extreme height but ridiculed for his love of fashion. "I was teased, rejected, I felt like an outsider," he says.

Andre says through high school and college he wanted to be a French teacher, but after an internship at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and a job with Andy Warhol, he began to pursue a career in fashion. "I love people—it is not the fashion, it is the people in fashion I love," Andre says. After more than two decades with Vogue, Andre says the people involved in the fashion industry still greatly inspire him. "Behind every great fashion theme is the personality, is the life journey (of the designer)," Andre says.