Inside the Designer's Studio: Isabel and Ruben Toledo
March 14, 2008The scene: Designer Isabel Toldeo and her husband, artist Ruben Toldeo, won over a crowd that included Otis students, Los Angeles designers and members of the international fashion community.
From the moment Ruben Toledo stepped on to the stage and began shooting a panoramic photo of the crowd with a point-and-shoot camera to the question-and-answer session at the end, when a student gushed “You’re more amazing than I thought you’d be,” the crowd was won.
The photogenic couple were the most-recent subjects of “Inside the Designer’s Studio,” an occasional lecture series produced by the Otis College of Art + Design and hosted by Otis’ founding fashion chair Rosemary Brantley.
Brantley guided the Toledos through a discussion of their roots in Cuba, their childhoods in New Jersey and their careers, which took them from New York to Paris and back again.
The two talked about what inspired their work. “Making, making, making. Solving a problem inspires me,” Isabel Toledo said. “Trying to figure out how to make something really drives me.”
The designer said she tends to shy away from the mainstream, following her own creative path.
“I’m a contrarian,” she said. “If everybody says ‘red,’ I say ‘blue.’ My aesthetic is very much whatever is not around. I look for what is not familiar to me.”
As a result, Isabel Toledo’s designs tend to be described as architectural, intellectual and timeless—and that seems to be exactly what the designer intended.
“I believe in things that last a long time, things that have integrity,” she said.
The event drew a who’s who of industry notables, including designers Juan Carlos Obando, Lloyd Klein, Liz Goldwyn, Sterling Capricio, Rod Beattie, L.A. Eyeworks’ Barbara McReynolds and Gai Gheradi, and Lisa Berman of Sculpture to Wear. The crowd also included Barbara Lazaroff of Wolfgang Puck, Jen Uner of the Los Angeles Fashion Awards, Jen Egan of Gen Art and Vogue Editor at Large Andre Leon Talley. —Alison A. Nieder