Ruben Toledo

Markopoulos Award Winner 2025

Ruben Toledo was born in Havana, Cuba in 1960 and moved to New York with his family as a child.

He is a painter, sculptor, illustrator, reporter and fashion chronicler, and renowned for his surrealist wit. The continuous, sudden changes of fashion and the body language of style are two constant themes of his work, which is inspired by a Latin flavor, but which is also strictly connected with American pop culture.

He is the author of the famous Style Dictionary, a collection of unforgettable images, which under the form of drawings and watercolors, meld fashion at its most ephemeral with style at its most abiding.

His decades-long collaboration with Ralph began when Toledo first designed a mannequin for PUCCI. The partnership continues, most notably including hand-painted surreal and whimsical images in limited edition on RALPH PUCCI Furniture which was called “historic” by New York Magazine design editor Wendy Goodman. He joined RALPH PUCCI in 1988.