Cuban-born Toledo attended both FIT and Parsons School of Design, but credits her real training to an internship with Diana Vreeland at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has been designing her signature collections since 1986. In 1998, she and her artist husband RubenToledo were the subjects of an exhibition at the Museum of FIT. The exhibition Toledo-Toledo: A Marriage of Art and Fashion, has since traveled to Kent State University Museum in Ohio, the Museum at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and, in part, to museums and galleries in Vienna, London and Tokyo. Isabel and Ruben Toledo received the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2005 and the Fashion Visionary Award from Fashion Group International in 2006. Isabel designed the lace coat and dress Michelle Obama wore to her husband’s swearing in ceremony as President of the United States. “Isabel Toledo Fashion from the Inside Out” was published in 2009 by Yale University Press in association with FIT.