Until the beginning of July the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) had an exhibition on entitled "Labor of Love" by Isabel and Ruben Toledo.
The duo examined the DIA's collection and selected a series of pieces that inspired their new sculptures, paintings, drawings and fashion designs that were then displayed in the museum spaces next to the original artworks.
In one of the rooms there were black gowns hanging from the ceiling; in another, mannequins in sculpted black gowns with their heads covered in black hoods and veils, represented a celebration of immigration and integration of different cultures in the local social fabric, while in another space there was a sumptuous golden gown, covered with a black cape, an ensemble that called to mind the black robes donned by statues of the Virgin Mary mourning the death of her son.
These sombre inspirations instantly came to mind when an email from Isabel Toledo's studio announced that the designer had died from breast cancer at 59.
Born in Cuba in 1960, Maria Isabel Izquierdo developed a fascination for sewing as a child. Isabel spent in Cuba an idyllic childhood, surrounded by strong female presences, from her mother to her aunts and neighbours, all independent women with their own distinctive style and personality, and fascinated by a quiet house presence, a sewing machine that belonged to her grandfather's first wife.
In 1968, after the Cuban Revolution, her parents decided to move to the United States and settled in West New York, N.J. Here a new chapter opened in Isabel's life. While perfectly managing to integrate herself in this new culture and environment in which freedom was the keyword, young Isabel developed a new obsession - sewing - and a genuine passion for cutting patterns.
Soon sewing her clothes turned from a child's hobby into a form of communication: going out at weekends and discovering the New York dance scene was the perfect excuse to keep on creating clothes and experimenting with patterns.
She started collaborating with her future husband, artist and illustrator Ruben Toledo, like her a Cuban refugee, soon after meeting him in high school. Together they tried to find new ways to mix art and fashion, and Isabel started selling her first designs at the Fiorucci shop.
Spotted by Madonna's stylist Maripol, who was at the time also in charge of finding young designers to showcase at Fiorucci's, they were offered a prime spot in a concession stand at the store where they enlisted the help of a very special sale assistant, model and filmmaker Suzie Zabrowska.
Through the shop Isabel and Ruben met key characters including Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. The couple also started collaborating on Arias and Nomi's performances, designing their sets and costumes.
Orders from Henri Bendel and Patricia Field's shop followed, the fashion media spotted the new designer and eventually the first catwalk show arrived in 1984. From that moment on the Toledos kept on growing, developing a designer's alphabet and offering innovative fashion solutions to women eager to experiment with their wardrobes.
Isabel's unique designs gained a cult following: she had an unconventional working method as she did not sketch, but directly worked with the fabric, describing a design to Ruben who would then translate it on paper. Isabel's three-dimensional approach and innovative pattern making are clear in many of her architectural designs.
Geometric shapes turned a simple coat into a perfect sculpture; a dress and jacket recreated in their forms the silhouette of a pagoda, while the multi-faceted cut of a diamond was reproduced on white draped rayon jersey dresses. Some garments were characterised by cocooning shapes, others, like the "Convertible Lettuce" dress, by thin and ethereal layers of silk crepe gazar or by minutely draped motifs that formed on the fabric a sort of waterfall-like effect, while jersey and taffeta dresses could change shape thanks to thin cords of fabric or cables. Isabel's modus operandi and her fascination with innovative construction meant that she was often compared by fashion historians and critics to designers Charles James and Geoffrey Beene.
Isabel Toledo served as creative director for Anne Klein from 2006 to 2007, and worked with big retailers such as Target, Lane Bryant and Payless ShoeSource, collaborations that were conceived not as ways to go global, but as opportunities to offer to a wider audience the chance of buying one of her pieces.
In the late 1990s Isabel Toledo dropped out of New York Fashion Week to slow down and create collections at her own pace rather than at breakneck speed. In her autobiography Roots of Style: Weaving Together Life, Love, and Fashion (2012; with illustrations were by Ruben Toledo), the decision is explained with these words: "The fashion scene shifted to the entertaining, slick theatrical productions of the fashion shows themselves. The emphasis was no longer on the clothes; in fact the spotlight seemed to be on everything but the clothes (…) Designing minds need time to nurture original ideas and allow them to develop. This is like replanting a forest: if we don't allow enough time for this important natural process, we end up with open ground that is barren of new ideas."
Leaving the runways turned out to be the best choice as being free from the time constraints of the fashion seasons helped Isabel and Ruben Toledo to focus on other types of work and create timeless designs.
The recipient of National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt museum in 2005, Isabel Toledo was honoured with the retrospective "Fashion from the Inside Out" at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum in New York. In an interview about that exhibition, Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, defined her "an icon of style".
Isabel was nominated for a Tony for the costumes for the musical "After Midnight" in 2014 and with Ruben she designed new sets and costumes for the Miami City Ballet's 2017 production of "The Nutcracker." Isabel also served on the CFDA Board for many years, always supporting small, independent designers.
She then entered history as the designer who created the lemongrass wool lace shift dress with matching overcoat that First Lady Michelle Obama chose for her husband Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009, a dress that symbolically ushered in a new era of hope (crushed by current US President Donald Trump...), anticipating a different political relationship between the U.S.A. and Cuba (in 2016 Barack Obama became the first U.S. President to visit Cuba since 1928).
Yet Isabel Toledo has been many women in her life and not just the designer of the iconic lemongrass dress: as a young woman she interned at the Met while former Harper's Bazaar editrix Diana Vreeland was the consultant at the museum's Costume Institute, an experience that allowed her to admire, study and touch historical creations, helping to install exhibitions and discovering the Costume Institute Conservation Laboratory with its expert seamstresses; she is also the designer of costumes for performances, troupes and dance legends including Twyla Tharp and Christopher Wheeldon, and worked with Ruben as artists in residence at the Pilchuck Glass School.
There is also the Isabel who loved fashion journalists' curiosity in discovering new talents and nurturing them and the Isabel who revolutionised the runways before the front row was radically changed by celebrities, bloggers and influencers.
At her shows there was indeed a "first come, first served" sitting arrangement, so that a fashion journalist would end up sitting next to a drag performer, museum curators next to textile manufacturers and so on.
Uninterested in fame and in being exploited by the corporate forces of fashion, Isabel Toledo was a rare gem in the vast ocean of this industry, a woman in love with design rather than with trends. Isabel is survived by Ruben, along with two of her sisters, Mary Santos and Anna Bertha Izquierdo.
One of the latest installations she created was the centerpiece for the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) exhibition, "Synthetic Cloud", featuring 11 pale blue tutus hiding layers of vividly coloured underskirts. Maybe that's how she will restyle the angels now that they are her heavenly customers.
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