I first heard about Ruben and Isabel Toledo's names in connection with Fiorucci. The former used to do windows displays for Fiorucci, the latter first started selling her clothes there.
Fashion purists will probably be screaming now, but I was a young girl when Fiorucci started producing his affordable and fun clothes and accessories and I was simply in love with it and with anything even remotely connected with it.
As time passed, I discovered a lot of interesting things about the Toledos and decided I liked them a lot for their talent and status of insiders yet outsiders of the fashion world.
I was extremely happy when Michelle Obama chose the Isabel Toledo ensemble for Inauguration Day and I'm even happier now that The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) has decided to celebrate Isabel with a special exhibition.
“Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out” (on until 26th September) is an accurate analysis of Isabel's designs, accompanied by Ruben's sketches. The exhibition was organised by Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, and Patricia Mears, deputy director of the museum. Here's a very brief Q&A with Dr Valerie Steele, but you can read my complete interview with her on Dazed Digital.
Question: Is “Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out” a retrospective exhibition and is it organised in a chronological way?
Dr Valerie Steele: We called the exhibition “a mid-career retrospective” because we think Isabel has many more years of creativity in front of her. I was interested in having a chronological element, but Isabel didn’t want to have an entirely chronological show, so the first room features the prime line with pictures organised chronologically and dated, with the last wall showing images of the creative processes behind Michelle Obama’s dress, then a photograph of Michelle wearing it and the dress itself on display on loan from the White House. While this first room is chronological, the main room where the other clothes are displayed is organised thematically, according to construction ideas. This room is divided into sections including, ‘Organic Geometry’, that allows us to analyse Isabel’s geometric patterns; ‘Surface Manipulation’, that explores elements such as pleating and working with the surface of fabric, and ‘Liquid Architecture’ where the clothing is very fluid, gravity pulls things down and Isabel manipulates different kinds of fabric so that the architecture of the dress flows in a particular way.
Question: What is your favourite Isabel Toledo design in the exhibition?
Dr Valerie Steele: That’s a very very hard thing to say! I think one of the most important designs that I really wanted to get for the museum was her packing dress that is shaped like a doughnut, the pattern is round with a hole cut in, and it can be worn back to front, front to back and upside down. It’s a very kind of Balenciaga looking dress, yet it can be packed flat into a little folded package. I think this is one of the most important designs Isabel did.
Question: Are you working already on any other fashion exhibition?
Dr Valerie Steele: I’m writing the catalogue that will go with the September 2010 show. It will focus on Japanese fashion and will be called “Japan Fashion Now”.
All the photographs in this post are by William Palmer (courtesy of the Museum at FIT).
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Great interview! Thanks for providing it.
Posted by: Heather | August 06, 2009 at 12:42 AM