Vogue India July 2016

230 VOGUE INDIA JULY 2016 http://www.vogue.in

paintings—his paintbrushes even

hang on the side of the kitchen.

Like the rest of the penthouse, the

kitchen too is full of memorabilia,

which Ruben calls “an accumulation of

life.” The champagne bottle with their

portraits was an award for some of

their designs, while the special Havana

Club packaging was a gift from friends.

Not ones to buy into the wallpaper

trend, for them, the walls are their

canvas—some of them covered in Ru-

ben’s black-on-white murals. “The

faces are all based on Isabel,” he says.

“I draw her over and over again. I

paint on the walls as a way of warming

up, before I start on paper. Every so

often I whitewash them and start

again,” he adds.

Isabel’s artistry is not missing ei-

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with props from her catwalk shows

over the years. “The wicker manne-

quins are from a show in the 1980s,”

she recalls. “We dressed them in the

clothes and put them on top of the

models, so they were 10 feet tall

when they walked the runway.”

“We designed it all,” says Ruben.

“We wanted something functional

and easy to take care of. We wanted

big frames around the doors—the

cupboards are really big.”

Isabel is Ruben’s muse—so much

so that even the tiles in the bath-

room are from his Isabel collection

for Ceramica Bardelli. “They’ve

living

“WE MAKE JAM FROM

THE KUMQUATS (A GIFT

FROM THEIR FRIEND

ALBER ELBAZ...WE TELL

EVERYONE THAT WE’RE

THE ONLY PEOPLE IN

THE WORLD WITH

LANVIN JAM”

—ISABEL TOLEDO

Ruben’s artistic

rendition of Isabel

appears in every nook

of the house

The dining room

breaks away from

the artistic tizzy

of the penthouse MARK O’FLAHERTY

/LIVING INSIDE

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