s Fall / Winter 06 07 - Steidl

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Fashionation: welcome to the greatest show on EARTH.
Ruben Toledo
FASHIO-N-ATION
For Ruben Toledo, Fashion is much more than just a luxury commodity – it sells dreams by the yard, has magical
anticipatory powers, is clairvoyant and is able to morph at a moments notice. This collection of over 150 drawings,
water colors and pen and ink portraits by artist Toledo explores with his typical Cuban Black Humor and sweetly cynical
New Yorker’s eye the ever changing landscape of fashion and the body language of style.
This highly personal look into Toledo’s brain unwraps the layers of mystery and strange associations that give fashion
its enduring and enigmatic power. Peek inside the workrooms of the Couture ateliers and bohemian studios; visit swanky
temples of high fashion retail and witness the life and death of a trend. This cabinet of curiosity contains the satirical
observations that together form a map of Toledo’s favorite state of mind and destination: FASHIO-N-ATION. For him,
fashion is an old tree that loves to show off its brightest flowers, but it also has very long roots that penetrate DEEP into
the underworld – into the catacombs of memory, the labyrinth of obsession and fixations.This duality of fashion is one of
the fascinating ingredients woven together that form this visual love poem to the world of fashion.
Ruben Toledo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1961 and is at once a painter, sculptor, illustrator, fashion chronicler and
critic, and surrealist. He has designed mannequins, store windows, award statuettes, scarves, fabrics, dishes and
carpets. He has painted murals, portraits, album covers and barns. He has also created witty and incisive illustrations
for the top fashion magazines and journals from around the world, among them The New Yorker, Vogue, Harper’s
Bazaar, Town & Country, Paper, Visionaire, Interview and The New York Times. Additionally, he is the illustrator of
Nordstrom’s national designer ad campaign. Toledo’s work has been on exhibit throughout the world, including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He is the author of Style Dictionary a collection of his drawings and
watercolors. His collaboration with his fashion designer wife, Isabel Toledo, was the subject of both a book and a
museum exhibition titled Toledo/Toledo: A Marriage of Art and Fashion at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of
Technology in New York City, where they both reside and work. Ruben Toledo recently completed his first film – an
animated History of French Fashion entitled Fashionation.
Ruben Toledo
FASHIO-N-ATION
Introduction by Simon Doonan
Essays by Valerie Steele and Richard Martin among others
Book design by Ruben Toledo and Gerhard Steidl
96 pages, illustrated throughout
14.25 x 18 in. / 36.2 x 45.8 cm
Clothbound Hardcover with dust jacket
Limited edition of 1000 signed and numbered copies
US $ 360.00 / £ 200.00 / R 300.00
ISBN 3-86521-301-4
ISBN-13 978-3-86521-301-3
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