ROYAL PALM OMNIMEDIA: CHILD OF PARADISE

Ruben Toledo

With his imaginative whimsical sketches that season after season has sent me anxiously scurrying to my local book store for the most recent issue of whichever high fashion periodical was depicting his work, Ruben Toledo has become one of my absolute favorite artists. As his wife also bluntly admits, “I fell in love with Ruben’s art before I fell in love with him…”. I could most certainly relate to her experience of having an immediate connection with his work as I recall my reaction to what I refer to as “his miniature flights of fashion fancy” or illustrations of the Nordstrom national designer ad campaigns that would appear in my fashion bible, Vogue. For years, I would use my scissors to neatly cut his pictures from my second copy of the magazine, (yes I would buy two as I like to keep one to “mark up” and one untouched for my ‘library’). and like a diligent craftsman, frame and hang them in my closet for decoration and inspiration.

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1961, Rubin Toledo immigrated to the United States with his family and was raised in New Jersey where as a middle school student he would meet his future wife, designer Isabel Toledo. The acclaimed illustrator, painter, sculptor and fashion chronicler has designed everything from award statuettes, to mannequins, to carpets. His work has been seen in some of the world’s most notable publications such as: Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, Town & Country and The New Yorker, just to name a few. The author, filmmaker and fashion visionary has had exhibitions throughout the world including both New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and Metropolitan Museum of Art. I consider him a living art legend whose presence should not be merely acknowledged, or remarked about, or even grandly celebrated; but treasured as we have so few great multi-dimensional masters of whom we can still call upon for whatever reason. More importantly, it so generously affords us the luxury of anticipation with the knowledge that more and dare I say, the best, is yet to come.

Here are a few reasons I LOVE RUBEN TOLEDO:

The man of the hour.

Ruben Toledo fashion illustration for nordstrom

Flirting with surrealism. This image was from 2008 with another Nordstron Toledo collaboration when Toledo painted 20-30 ft walls with bold black brush strokes. Toledo even painted on the faces of the models. Photograph by Ruven Afanador