Isabel Toledo, designer behind Michelle Obama's 2009 inaugural outfit, dies at 59

Isabel Toledo with her husband, Ruben Toledo.
(Image credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images)

Fashion designer Isabel Toledo, the creator of former first lady Michelle Obama's 2009 inaugural parade outfit, died Monday in Manhattan. She was 59.

Her husband, artist Ruben Toledo, said she died of breast cancer. Toledo was known for focusing on the construction of her garments; she said she engineered her clothes. She started sewing at age 8, the same time her family moved to the United States from Cuba, and she launched her own line in 1984 after interning for Diana Vreeland at the Costume Institution of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.