The late Isabel Toledo was at once influential and inspiring –quietly yet captivatingly so.
Toledo, who died of breast cancer, was frequently referred to as the “designer’s designer,” and indeed was a creative force admired by customers and peers alike.
Her experimentation with garments and unique creative process rendered fascinating results – the packing skirt from Toledo’s spring 1988 collection being just one example of this. The skirt, she told CFDA for the book Impact: 50 Years of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, “encapsulated an evolution of ideas that began in 1984 with a beach bag I sold at Fiorucci.” To her, the piece proved to be a triple-blessing. “Because I come from the school of the self-taught, the design was to be the first of many experimentations with circles and geometric patterns to come to fruition.”
CFDA President and CEO Steven Kolb called her “one of the great originals in American fashion. Her creativity was always about craft and never about hype. She was a real designer who sewed and who understood that the choice of materials mattered.”
Born in Cuba and arriving in the U.S. as a teen, Toledo was staunchly proud of her heritage, which she shared with her artist husband Ruben. Her sartorial approach honed in on material and garment construction over inspiration.
Toledo had told Dr. Valerie Steele n 1989, “I really love the technique of sewing more than anything else—the seamstress is the one who knows fashion from the inside! That’s the art form really, not fashion design, but the technique of how it’s done.”
Toledo never sought out to be a fashion celebrity—far from it. She let the designs speak for herself and in the process became known as a fashion force. The late New York Times Fashion Critic Amy Spindler once said of her, “Only great designers can dispense with themes and theatrics and let the work speak instead. Ms. Toledo does just that, letting fashion itself be the theme.”
Toledo, who was a 2005 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist, served as the creative director Anne Klein, another fashion legend, for a short period, and brand collaborations included a plus-size collection with Lane Bryant.
She received an FIT Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion in 2008, and in 2009, the Museum at FIT staged an exhibition on her work, Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out.
The creative collaboration with her husband was the stuff of American fashion legends, both feeding off of one another’s creative impulses. When she described an idea or feeling, she told Steele at FIT, he would sketch it. “We’re so meshed, it’s impossible to separate what we do,” Ruben said in the interview.
Last year, the pair collaborated on an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts titled A Labor of Love.
She firmly cemented her place in American fashion history when First Lady Michelle Obama wore a lemongrass coat and dress designed by her to President Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009.
Toledo served on the CFDA Board for many years, where she used her voice to rally for the needs of small, independent designers. She was also a longtime advocate of people living with HIV/AIDS, having supported the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS for many years.
“Her death is a tremendous loss for our industry,” Kolb said. “CFDA’s thoughts are with her beloved husband Ruben.”
