NEW YORK — Isabel Toledo, the designer of Michelle Obama’s famous bright lemongrass-colored inaugural ensemble, is a creative woman with eclectic interests.

She is a gardener, cooks a mean batch of Cuban black beans and is attached at the hip to Ruben, her husband and business partner. She says she wouldn’t — actually couldn’t — continue her career without him.

“We don’t work the way other people work. I think of an idea and I tell him to get a notebook — he has thousands of notebooks. I dictate to him and he draws what’s in my mind,” she explains.

What Isabel Toledo is not: a publicity monger.

When Michelle Obama chose the sheath dress with matching coat to watch her husband become the 44th president, Toledo didn’t send out a press release. She didn’t have her people speed-dial fashion reporters. She doesn’t even have “people,” really, unless you count Ruben.

It was the same scenario when Mrs. Obama wore Toledo’s two-tone dress to meet Queen Elizabeth II this spring. A reporter had to hunt down Ruben by landline phone at their joint studio-home in the Garment District. The Toledos don’t do cell phones.

The couple seems genuinely too busy — enjoying their work, enjoying their lives, enjoying each other — to worry about public relations. They don’t bother with celebrity dressing, and they barely keep up with what’s going on in the rest of the fashion industry.

The industry, however, has kept up with them. Even before Mrs. Obama turned on the spotlight, insiders knew about Isabel Toledo’s fondness for draping and her aversion to side seams. They also could recognize Ruben Toledo’s illustrations and mannequins, all of which capture at least a hint of Isabel in their faces, shape and body language.

For three seasons she was the designer for mainstream brand Anne Klein, and now her own label hangs on the racks at top department stores and high-end boutiques like Chicago’s Ikram, which is known to be an incubator for the first lady’s wardrobe.

Isabel, 47, says she is flattered that Mrs. Obama, a woman she believes to have a strong personal style, has chosen her clothes without being pushed.

The inaugural outfit is currently on display at New York’s Museum at FIT as part of an exhibit that grew out of The Fashion Institute of Technology’s Couture Council Award, which Isabel received last year. “Isabel Toledo: Fashion From the Inside Out,” running through Sept. 26, is billed as a midcareer retrospective.