One of the most exciting fashion designers in the United
States, Cuban-born Isabel Toledo has been honored
with a National Design Award from the Cooper- Hewitt
Museum and a Couture
Council Award for Artistry of Fashion, given
by The Museum at FIT. Yet her name and work are
recognized only by fashion insiders. The
publication of the stunning new book Isabel
Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out (Yale University
Press, 2009, $60), brings Toledo's creations
to a wider audience, places them within the context of
contemporary fashion, and examines her creative process.
Written by Valerie Steele, a leading fashion historian
and director of The Museum at FIT along with Patricia
Mears, the book, which accompanies the current exhibition
at The Museum at FIT, highlights the
innovative work of this critically acclaimed designer and
details the ups-and-downs of her 25-year career.
Interviewing Toledo, her husband (fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo), and other
colleagues, clients, and critics, Valerie Steele gives
an account of Toledo's
career and explains that while she has been heralded by leading fashion magazines
and featured in stores in New York and Europe, she has not had the long-term
financial backing to break out of the niche market. Patricia Mears investigates
the artistic and cultural influences on Toledo's work and analyzes her unusual
methods of construction, noting that she designs in three dimensions in her mind
and then begins working directly with fabric. Displaying garments Toledo has
created since her first show in 1985, this book is a revelatory exploration of
a fashion innovator in a mass-market industry.
On view
through September 26, 2009
The Museum at the FIT
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York, NY
www.fitnyc.edu
This mid-career retrospective will display approximately 70 iconic looks from the mid- 1980s to the present, including pieces from Toledo's highly praised 2007-2008 collections as creative director of Anne Klein. Isabel
Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out is organized by Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, and Patricia Mears, deputy director of the museum.
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