For some it will be his art and illustration that they love and remember best, others his photography, the fashion work for Italian Vogue and the covers of the Tatler, for others, his razor-sharp writing and editing. Yes, hipness, elegance, wit and humor, and beauty. “Michael’s legacy is beauty,” writes the former Vogue editor William Norwich. Michael was always very generous, kind, encouraging, and funny. “I would see his stories in Tatler and think, wow, there’s a Black man who is doing it on his own terms. “Michael Roberts really made me see what was possible: he and André Leon Talley were two Black people at the top of the industry,” said Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief of British Vogue. Roberts’s versatile talents and playful sense of humor have been remembered by his friends and collaborators following his passing. In keeping with his restless spirit, it even featured an entirely new creative venture for Roberts: mosaics. As a follow-up to his 2007 book Shot in Sicily-a photographic document of the Italian island which he first visited in 1987, and where he settled permanently in 2019-he released his final book Island of Eternal Beauties last year as a love letter to a place that became his home. More recently, Roberts’s projects included writing the introduction for his close friend and collaborator Grace Coddington’s 2016 book with Phaidon, Grace, and directing the 2017 documentary Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards, about the life story and creative journey of the shoe designer Manolo Blahnik. In 2022, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to fashion as part of the Queen’s New Year Honors. Known for his close working relationship with the Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown-who went on to introduce Roberts to readers of the New Yorker in 1997 as “the Jean Cocteau of the fashion world”-Roberts’s maverick talents saw him rise to become one of the industry’s most respected authorities, even as he moved away from styling and writing to explore other creative avenues in his later career. Throughout his wide-ranging five-decade career, Roberts shaped the course of fashion through words, images, and illustrations, with his body of work serving as an extraordinary document of the industry’s ever-changing landscape. “He died peacefully, early on Monday morning, at his home on the island of Sicily.”

“It is with one very heavy heart that we have to announce the death of our beloved friend Michael,” they wrote.

Michael Roberts, the writer, editor, stylist, and photographer best known for his influential tenures as the fashion and style director of Vanity Fair magazine and the fashion editor of the New Yorker, died on Monday morning at the age of 75, a close friend has confirmed.

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