I went to the hottest cocktail party of the year on Tuesday night (all pun intended in the best way) at the penthouse loft of fashion designer Isabel Toledo and her artist husband Ruben Toledo. In September, Isabel will be honored with the 2008 Award for Artistry of Fashion by The Couture Council of The Museum at FIT. The award will
precede a major retrospective of
Toledos work at the museum, entitled Holy Toledo! Isabel
Toledo and the Art of Fashion, opening June 19, 2009 through September
26, 2009. The exhibition will feature several key Toledo looks dating back to 1985 to the present as well as illustrations by Ruben Toledo.
If you're not a fashionista who is already quite familiar with Isabel Toledo, I'll bet you've seen this:
She designed the gorgeous, flowing gown Michelle Obama wore last month at a fundraiser in Manhattan. The necklace is by Tom Binns. Isabel told me that she was beside herself when she arrived and realized that Michelle was in her dress! Apparently, the potentially future first lady s a long time fan and buys Isabel Toledo designs the chic Chicago boutique Ikram, one of the few places that you can score a Toledo design these days.
Isabel and Ruben Toledo. Aren't they just adorable? They have been married for 24 years.
The Toledos kept apologizing for the heat, but it's not as if they could help it since there was no air conditioning in their gallery space and they certainly couldn't control the weather. We all enjoyed mojitos and/or wine (Yes, I blew my ABCDEF thing again R/C readers!) as we admired the Toledo's space which was filled with Ruben's illustrations, eclectic sculptures, a giant cactus and hula hoops. Yes, hula hoops.
The crowd was very Harper's Bazaar staff and
FIT heavy, but there was also a nice mix of notables from various
fields including Narciso Rodriguez, Vera Wang,
Simon Doonan, Iris Apfel, Carmen del Orifice. I ran into my Web Snob buddy Lauren Dimet Waters of Second City Style and and met a nice new fashion blogger named Elizabeth of Kromstyle.com and her sister Maggie. I was also happy to finally meet Lola Ogunnaike of CNN and Michaela Angela Davis (formerly of Essence and Honey) as well as Alexis Clark of Town & Country and Teri Agins of the Wall Street Journal.
The legendary model Carmen del Orifice and the iconoclast designer Iris Barrel Apfel with the Toledos and fashion designer Maggie Norris.
Narciso Rodriguez and Ruben Toledo.
Vera Wang and handbag designer Eric Javits.
Harper's Bazaar Editor-in-Chief Glenda Bailey with the Toledos.
Here is one of the pictures I took that did not
come out blurry of Patrick McMullan (who took all of the pictures in this story except the Michelle Obama shot) with the philanthropist Gillian
Miniter. Her dress was absolutely gorgeous and I swear she seemed to
be the only person there who didn't seem to sweat a bit.
Then again, some of us were not exactly worried about sweating, like Baroness in her rubber dress.
See all in: Beauty Fashion
