5 posts tagged "Isabel Toledo"
What Harlem Will Be Wearing This Summer
Target’s newest megastore opens its doors in Harlem later this month, so to celebrate its new home, the brand tapped a few designers to create limited-edition, Harlem-centric items, a portion of the profits from which will go to neighborhood causes of their choosing. Isabel and Ruben Toledo contributed swimwear and cover-ups (Isabel-designed and Ruben-illustrated), like the graphic bikini and beach towel, above. (“El Museo,” perched atop the towel-lady’s coif, stands in for the collection’s beneficiary—El Museo del Barrio.) Designer Stephen Burrows designed brightly color-blocked dresses, and chef Marcus Samuelsson, whose new restaurant, Red Rooster, is slated to open in Harlem this fall, had a hand in fruit- and- vegetable-print potholders and kitchen accessories (the latter two to benefit libraries in local schools).
Isabel and Ruben Toledo for Target towel, $24.99, and bikini top and bottom, $17.99 each, available July 25 at Target, 517 E. 117 St., NYC, (212) 835-0860, and beginning August 1 at www.target.com.
Toledo, Meet Topeka
Top editors including W‘s Stefano Tonchi, Vogue‘s Sally Singer, and Kim Hastreiter of Paper magazine joined Isabel Toledo and the top brass from Payless ShoeSource at Casa Lever today for a lunch to fête the designer’s collaboration with the global chain. Toledo has created seven shoe styles—all vegan and all, she promises, comfortable to walk in—along with two bags. We’re particularly fond of the rubber-soled wedge ghillie on the gal on the left of this Ruben Toledo watercolor. Thanking CEO LuAnn Via and CMO Eran Cohen, who were in town from the company’s headquarters in Topeka, Kansas, Toledo said, “I’m very well oiled in the special and the unique, and you’re top at getting product to the masses.” With 4,200 locations in 19 countries (Russia will make 20 later this year), plenty of people are going to become better acquainted with Toledo’s special brand of uniqueness when the shoes arrive in September.
Isabel Toledo At FIT
Michelle Obama’s Inauguration Day coat and dress is easily the most high-profile ensemble in Isabel Toledo’s repertoire, so it’s no surprise it’s the first thing you see at Isabel Toledo: Fashion From The Inside Out, opening today at the Museum at FIT. Still, this is a designer who prefers to identify her work on a conceptual as opposed to client-oriented basis. “It’s not who’s wearing your dress,” she explained. “That’s the easiest way to describe your work.” Instead, Toledo and husband/collaborator Ruben used thematically based categories, e.g., “Origami” or “Manipulated Surfaces,” to curate the 70-plus looks in the exhibition, which include everything from the striped cotton and denim coats of her eponymous line to the silk taffeta shirtwaist dresses hand-painted by Ruben that she designed for Anne Klein. As to the inevitable life-changing effects of dressing the First Lady, the still fiercely independent designer does admit to enjoying her newfound mass appeal. Might a Target collaboration, à la fellow Obama designers Thakoon Panichgul and Tracy Feith, be in the works? “Maybe you should write about it,” Toledo laughed. “Maybe they’ll call.”
Michelle Watch: Holy Toledo And The Royal Wu
The question: What to wear to meet the Queen? The Fashion Icon-in-Chief answered with a Jason Wu coat and an Isabel Toledo dress topped with a little French twist in an Azzedine Alaïa cardigan. The look hewed to Mrs. Obama’s black-and-white motif from yesterday when she boarded Air Force One for the trip to London. (Though she surprised us all by emerging from said jet in chartreuse Jason Wu.) And she couldn’t very well wear J.Crew to Buckingham Palace, though her spring-y fresh ensemble at 10 Downing looked pretty fantastic, and to us that seems like the right place to make a populist sartorial statement. The Wu coat is another custom piece—a black duchesse satin opera number with a wide, pleated collar. She echoed the black satin in her kitten-heel pumps and oblong clutch. Both seem appropriately formal for the occasion, though black satin for day? That’s throwing us just a touch. Under that is Isabel Toledo’s silk crepe “tuxedo-tank” dress with an origami belt. With the little cardi and that double strand of pearls, the look is giving us millennial June Cleaver. Of course, we highly doubt that Mrs. Cleaver would have gone French, even in her accessories.
Michelle Watch: Holy Isabel Toledo
Michelle Obama chose yet another New York name she’s worn before for this morning’s events. Mrs. Obama is currently wearing a lemon yellow tweed coat, cardigan, and dress from industry darling Isabel Toledo. (Memory jog: The soon-to-be first lady wore a fashion-forward black tunic and pants from Toledo for last summer’s New York fundraiser hosted by Anna Wintour and Calvin Klein.) The collarless knee-length coat and matching dress hews closely to the silhouette of yesterday’s camel and black Narciso Rodriguez look. But hey, if you know a shape works for you, we fully support sticking to it. On first glance, her choice displays a classic first lady conservatism, but we’ve learned by now that Mrs. Obama likes to add a subtle touch of edge through accessories—i.e., an Alaïa belt or a Tom Binns necklace—to spice things up. Here, however, that seems to be the slightly off-kilter addition of a pair of teal kitten-heeled Jimmy Choo pumps that don’t quite give us the shivers in the same way as the abovementioned extras. Though we suppose a Nicholas Kirkwood platform might not be appropriate for church and subsequent holding of the Lincoln bible.