Andre Leon Talley is still considered one of America’s most important style arbiters. Even though he’s no longer Anna Wintour’s right-hand man, he’s still very involved in fashion and everything around fashion. So it’s no surprise that Maureen Dowd was tasked with interviewing Talley about the incoming Trump administration, and the ongoing debate about Melania Trump and what kind of access she will and she should have to designers. The “what will Melania wear?” story seems to have legs, as so many designers have come out to declare whether or not they would dress her. The PEOTUS also met with Anna Wintour at Trump Tower, so I do think there will be some softening from the official fashion world. As for Talley says about Melania… it’s complicated, but he seems to like her. You can read Dowd’s full interview here (it’s worth a read). Some highlights:

He’s not part of Trumpland: “You make the choice to be in Trumpland or you make the choice to eject yourself from the horror of Trumpland. I’ve made my choice not to be part of Trumpland.”

Why Anna Wintour met with Trump: “As for Anna Wintour going to Mr. Trump, she’s a powerful woman, she’s running an empire, she’s the editorial director of Condé Nast. We can’t judge her for going to a meeting. She’s a professional, powerful woman. That’s all I have to say.”

Why he was positive about Melania initally: “She’s a nice person. I do not endorse Trumpism on any level. So why can’t one be positive and want her to shine? I mean, it’s good she cares about napkins, crystal, dinner plates with gilded edges to the point of over the top, and abundant flower arrangements. In the end, why pick on her when they should be picking on her husband’s billionaire cabinet and his seeming readiness to turn the country back towards oppression, anti-Semitism, anti-culturalism, etc. I’m not a big person in the world. I’m maybe a big figure in the fashion world. I mean, sort of iconic. But I don’t want to get phone calls in the middle of the night, telling me I’ve gone over to Trumpland and I’m going to Darth Vader because I said nice things about Melania. I voted for Hillary Clinton. I registered in North Carolina because it mattered. I went through hoops of fire to get my absentee ballot. And, quite frankly, I thought she would have brought back the pantsuit. I thought the gray trouser suit designed by Ralph Lauren she wore with the purple satin shell and the lapels matching the blouse was brilliant. The elegant anthracite gray dry wool actually was slimming.”

Melania’s Election Night look: “Melania, who opted at 3 a.m. for a palazzo jumpsuit, with one arm exposed and a flounce over the other — it seemed to me too Mar-a-Lago, a huge, full-volume jumpsuit. Trying too hard. And I am so tired of the long hair falling on both sides of her face. She has to upgrade her coiffure.”

The change in Donald Trump: “He became the master of darkness, the master of the dark empire, as he became more powerful, as he started with birtherism and in the campaign. Birtherism is terrible. It was a terrible thing he did to Obama. And he never let go. ‘Make America great again.’ A lot of people think that means make America white again… People are really afraid of these dark, dark institutions of bigotry and anti-Semitism that have come out from under the rocks like creepy snakes and come up to rear their heads up like cobras. People seem to have put all their egregious things on the back burner. Melania plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech. Let’s just wait and see what happens on Jan. 20. I don’t want Trump to fail, and I don’t want Melania Trump to fail. But I’m not going to sit here and say any more positive things, because I’d get crucified from personal friends.”

Whether the Trumps deserve respect: “Did the Congress ever treat Obama as a president? Did they plot in a restaurant the night he was inaugurated to filibuster everything for eight years? This country has elected a president who is on audiotape saying I’m a star and I can do whatever I want with women, grab them in the vagina. Dignity has gone out the door. He’s causing me much ire. He just said, ‘My cabinet has the highest I.Q.’ His cabinet of mostly white men. That’s a dog whistle.”

[From The NY Times]

There’s a ton of other stuff, but you get the idea. Basically, Talley is trying to be nice and positive but he sees the Trumps for what they are. He believes Melania is truly private and concerned about Barron first and foremost. He believes that Melania will be glamorous but uneventful fashion-wise, and that no one should forget that her husband is a deranged lunatic.

Photos courtesy of WENN.