Tonight, the CFDA will posthumously honor Isabel Toledo’s beautiful legacy in fashion. Here’s a look back at Bazaar’s 2007 feature on the designer, her husband, and their creative bliss at their New York home.
When Ruben Toledo first laid eyes on his future wife, Isabel, at age 13, her ebony hair glimmering in Spanish class in New Jersey, it was, in the illustrator’s own words, “love at first sight.” Isabel was not as immediately clairvoyant. “I fell in love with Ruben’s art before I fell in love with him,” admits the Cuban-born fashion designer, who has recently been appointed creative director at Anne Klein.
Start date aside, theirs is a remarkable love affair — just because of its longevity or the passion that is still palpable between them, but mostly because of their two-decade (both are now 45) creative collaboration that spans fashion design, painting, illustration, and even mannequin making.
The scene for this nonstop creativity is a towering, light-filled loft in midtown Manhattan, which, semantically, is neither home nor office but a cozy place in between. On the seventh and tenth floors of the building, Isabel designs and produces her niche fashion label, Isabel Toledo, while the 11th-floor penthouse doubles as their living space and Ruben’s painting and drawing studio. In mutual muse roles, Ruben will run downstairs to sketch out his wife’s fashion designs, then race back upstairs to work on his illustrations for clients like Nordstrom, Barneys New York, and Louis Vuitton. Later, his wife might pop up to glance at his paintings, which in turn inspire her own pattern cutting. “You can look at it two ways,” offers Isabel. “We’re either always working or always at home.”
Because of this unique arrangement, many standard domestic elements have been omitted — most notably, a couch. “We look forward to having the luxury of being couch potatoes one day,” quips Ruben, his paintbrush-twirling hand belying the imminence of that prospect. Isabel, who will debut her first collection for Anne Klein during New York Fashion Week in early February, sees no distinction between her work and her life. “We’re not trying to finish something to start something we love. We love it the whole time.”
Their apartment is a creator’s paradise, where the smallest bit of inspiration (a bicycle wheel, a sketch, a portrait of Isabel) is hoisted up into Calderesque mobiles, while walls double as canvases. “Ruben will draw on anything that’s in front of him,” sighs Isabel, citing the telephone numbers climbing up the wall.
Aside from the furniture (which is minimal), hardly anything in their home is store-bought. “I’m not a shopper, I have to admit,” says Isabel, who fishes through her own 23-year archive of fashion designs when she needs a wardrobe update. “We experience art. We’re makers.” She describes her aesthetic as “Victorian in a weird way, very proper and very covered up,” and she favors sailor pants, bolero jackets, and long skirts with special details for her day-to-day wardrobe.
Just a perfunctory glance at the Toledos gives viewers a sense of their renegade spirit. With her high forehead, classic face, and cinched waist, Isabel looks as if she just stepped out of an Ingres portrait. Ruben, meanwhile, channels a matinee screen idol with his pencil-thin mustache, manicured hair waves, and flood-length pants. But the couple’s chic eccentricity is more than just skin-deep. Isabel has purposefully stayed out of the fashion spotlight, preferring to do things her way, with “less business and more art,” and Ruben’s taste keeps him on the fringes of conventionality. (“I love weird things, the uglier the better,” he says.) The Toledos live in a world they have drawn up for themselves, and their idiosyncrasies are all the better for it.
Ruben, for example, won’t eat at a restaurant unless he personally knows the cook. (“It’s got to be the right vibe.”) Isabel’s preferred form of exercise is the untrendy hula hoop. When Ruben first made his übersleek mannequins for Barneys in 1989, he used his wife’s slim body as the cast model. Hostess gifts are never store-bought but always a Ruben art special. “I look around Ruben’s studio, and I pick something that reminds me of the person,” says Isabel, who also uses her husband’s discarded sketches as her personal stationery. Clearly, intimacy trumps social and fashion conventions.
“Everything is somehow connected to us,” continues Isabel, who wears only her own designs but makes an exception for gifts received from fashion-designer friends like Karl Lagerfeld, Francisco Costa, and Narciso Rodriguez. “She’s creative, bohemian, and chic — a rare combination these days,” enthuses Costa. “She’s very unique.”
“And she’s a walker,” her husband boasts. “She’ll wear the most incredible heels and walk 20 blocks with me to a party.” Ruben’s wardrobe consists of suits that are custom-made by his wife and his beloved carpenter pants that are purchased at the local hardware store.
Though decidedly under the radar, Isabel and Ruben have garnered quite a fan base, even within the catty confines of the fashion world. “It’s hard not to be sentimental about Isabel and her genius,” says fellow designer Narciso Rodriguez. “She is one of our greatest designers as well as a good friend and my personal design hero.”
Isabel’s profile will no doubt expand with her new position at Anne Klein, where she follows in the footsteps of such an illustrious name as Donna Karan. Returning to the runway (she stopped presenting fashion shows for her own label in 1998) is “thrilling” for the designer, as is the idea of “being able to express myself on a bigger level.”
Her plans for the label? “This is it,” she says, gesturing to herself. Typically defiant, she continues to do things her own way. “If we don’t love it, I can’t do it,” says Isabel. “I can’t take it. I can’t fake it.”