New York, July 22, 2008 – Designer Isabel Toledo will be honored in September by the Couture Council of the Museum at FIT, and Glenda Bailey and museum director Valerie Steele threw a party to celebrate.  Not only is Toledo a talented designer – a favorite of Michelle Obama – but she’s so charming that 200 or so fashion world VIPs ignored the lack of air conditioning in her Midtown Manhattan loft to toast her.  Toledo’s husband, artist Ruben Toledo, played the gracious host even though he’s shy.  “Isabel’s very social; I’m very anti-social.  So it’s a perfect blend of the opposite”, he told us. 

The Toledos are a private couple and say they rarely entertain, and indeed, most of the guests told us they’d never before been to the multi-level, art-filled loft.  One exception is Narciso Rodriguez, who has visited the Toledos often.  “I guess they’re part of my family”, Rodriguez told us. “It’s fabulous here”, he added, looking around the vast space.   Ruben is finishing up his book of drawings called Fashionation, and then the couple is off to Germany in August where Isabel and Karl Lagerfeld, the publisher, will choose the inks and paper for the book.