The XX Factor: What women really think.

One Last Word on that Chartreuse Confection

Judith Thurman, who wrote a profile of Isabel Toledo and her husband Ruben in The New Yorker two years ago, has this touching postscript on Michelle's Inauguration Day frock:

Since the whole occasion is so fraught with symbolism, I think that the choice of Isabel was particularly apt. She and Ruben are Latinos—from Cuba—who grew up in working-class families. They and the Obamas belong to the same generation. Ruben described himself to me (before Obama famously did) as a “mutt.” America gave them a chance, and they made the best of it. When Obama spoke, this morning, about the “makers” who work with their hands, and who have built America, he might have been thinking of the Toledos. They are also independent entrepreneurs who have built a small business, which has suffered its ups and downs, but they hang in. And like the Obamas, they’re an unusually devoted couple.