This Woman's Work

The most joyful moment for me this past Inauguration Day was when I saw Michelle Obama walk into church that January morning wearing a mustard lace outfit by my longtime friend and fashion heroine Isabel Toledo. I am not sure that Mrs. Obama even realized that she had selected (with the skillful guidance of her style mentor Ikram Goldman) a design from the most important American fashion talent working today. I have been writing (or should I say screaming) about Isabel Toledo for 25 years now, and have watched this unique independent fashion underdog carve her own path in a parallel universe to the "fashion world" -- a world that has been slow to embrace her talent and toward which she remains wary.

"Isabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside Out" at F.I.T., which opened in June and will run through September, makes crystal clear why this fashion outsider will be in the history books. Co-curated by one of her great advocates, director-curator Valerie Steele (who also co-wrote a book for the occasion), the retrospective surveys Toledo's work mid-career, presenting it in categories such as "Origami" (simple geometric shapes folded into sculptural forms), "Suspension" (jersey and taffeta pieces hanging from cords and cables) and "Liquid Architecture" (jersey pieces falling like liquid on the body). Her artist husband, longtime collaborator and source of inspiration, Ruben Toledo, describes his wife's work best: "How stuff looks to Isabel is only the outcome of everything that comes before. She arrives at shapes based on the construction of a thought or how something feels. She works from the inside out."

At the Fashion Institute of Technology, 7th Ave. at 27th St., through Sept. 26.