Isabel Toledo: Beyond the Michelle Obama Dress
The late fashion designer, best known for creating the first lady’s 2009 inauguration-ceremony look, imbued her work with a love of diversity.
If she had done nothing else in her career, Isabel Toledo, who died Monday of breast cancer at the age of 59, would be celebrated for for her husband’s 2009 inauguration ceremony. In a harbinger of the coming eight years, Obama chose a sheath dress and matching coat made by a Cuban American woman rather than by the grizzled white men—Ralph Lauren, Bill Blass, James Galanos—whose designs had heretofore been synonymous with “American” style in the White House. Obama accessorized with Jimmy Choo shoes and gloves from J. Crew, example of the designer’s taste for “off” colors.
