Some pretty big news is funneling out of Target’s HQ: not only has the retailer signed on couple Isabel & Ruben Toledo—she a critically acclaimed and seasoned NYC designer who became a household after dressing the First Lady, he a celebrated illustrator—for its latest designer collaboration, as of July 25th, Target will be opening its debut Manhattan storefront in Harlem. Shoppers can get first dibs on the Toldeo collection on August 1st, as well as “a Stephen Burrows apparel collection and a Marcus Samuelsson home collection,” says Fashionista.

My first vision of Patti Smith is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. She’s a few feet from me on a dark stage in a club, long lost in addled memory. I can see her now in my minds eye …slow motion… then faster than life, then a strobe light vision in a white T-shirt. Bottles are being thrown at the stage and she’s barking and bellowing at the combat-booted crowd. She leers and screams, threatening them into a frenzy of punk madness. I became conscious in that world of geek bands like the Dead Boys, The Heartbreakers and The Ramones, where being sedated or lost or misplaced was the anthem. Patti Smith was saying something different to me that night.

Back in high school she may have cut classes, while he flunked his -- but, today, Isabel and Ruben Toledo are continually schooling the fashion industry on how to stay ahead of the curve. Partners both professionally as well as romantically, the duo garnered SCAD's Lifetime Achievement back in May. Now, FIT is paying homage to Isabel and her designs (which have won the favor of the First Lady herself, who donned Toledo's line for Inauguration Day) with a recently opened retrospective. The exhibition, titled "Fashion From The Inside Out," spans the designer's career and is on view in NYC through September 26.

Midway through May -- a slew of fashion aficionados, many of whom had flown down from New York for the weekend -- gathered in Savannah, Georgia, for the Savannah College of Art & Design's annual senior fashion show. Vogue's Editor-at-Large Andre Leon Talley (who holds an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from SCAD) was on hand to present Isabel and Ruben Toledo with the college's Lifetime Achievement Award. Designers Yigal Azrouël and Lars Nilsson were also present, taking in the collection presentations (partially the fruits of their own labor, as each designer played mentor to members of SCAD's senior class via its StyleLab program) from the front row. None seemed disappointed by the exciting and evocative show, which reaffirmed SCAD's reputation as one of the premiere fashion programs in the world. Given the collegiate atmosphere, when we caught up with the Toledos pre-show (Isabel having recently become a household name thanks to Michelle Obama wearing her design for President Obama's Inauguration, and Ruben revered for his iconic illustrations), our first question was what the couple, who met at school in New Jersey at the age of 13, were like as students.