Who

Renaissance man Ruben Toledo is known for his paintings, illustrations, and murals as well as his epic romance with his fashion designer wife, Isabel Toledo.

Backstory

Toledo was born in Cuba and moved to the U.S. when he was five. He was 13 when he met his future wife, Isabel, in a middle school Spanish class in West New York, New Jersey (he says it was love at first sight). Ruben and Isabel started dating after high school and moved to the city, where he enrolled at the School of Visual Arts and she went to Parsons. After one semester he dropped out and sold used cars for a while before working at Parachute, a boutique in SoHo. Meanwhile, Isabel had a concession stand selling her fledgling label—which Ruben helped get off the ground by cutting patterns, pressing samples and doing deliveries—at Fiorucci. The hip downtown store was a hotbed of talent at the time—Betsey Johnson, Anna Sui, and Jill Stuart all had booths, too—and Toledo's big break came in the mid-'80s when he started designing its window displays, earning attention from art world luminaries like Andy Warhol and Keith Haring.

Of note

Since his arrival on the scene, Toledo has worked across a variety of media, from painting to sculpture to illustration to product design. He's penned illustrations for The New Yorker, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the New York Times; published a book called Style Dictionary, which features his drawings and watercolors; painted murals for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum; and contributed illustrations to The Bombshell Manual of Style and Nina Garcia's The Little Black Book of Style. He's also designed installations at retail locations (like Barneys), as well as perfume bottles, CD covers, and award statuettes. He frequently collaborates with his wife: A collection of their joint work was the subject of both a book and an exhibition at FIT entitled "Toledo/Toledo: A Marriage of Art and Fashion."

Personal

The mustachioed Ruben lives and works with Isabel—they've been married since 1984—in a penthouse loft in the flower district just south of Midtown.