Iris Apfel
‘I’m not pretty and I’ll never be pretty, but it doesn’t matter. I have something much better, I have style.’
Iris Apfel 1921-1924
Iris Apfel, interior designer, model and fashionista has died at the age of 102. Her life was lived magnificently.
Iris and her husband Carl Apfel owned and operated Old World Weavers and their booming busines was all about interiors and restoration. They specialized in replicas of exotic antique fabrics and the Apfel clients included Greta Garbo, Jackie Kennedy and several American presidents.
In her later years Iris expanded into designing costume jewellery, fashion items, shoes, make-up and spectacles. She also modelled for Vogue and other publications.
Her Russian-born mother owned her own fashion boutique in New York and while still very young Iris learnt how to spot a bargain the Queens flea markets. She was ahead of Hollywood stars such as Brando and Monroe who donned working man’s blue jeans and made them a fashion icon.
‘In the ’40s I was probably the first woman to wear jeans. All of a sudden I had a vision. I said ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had… this sounds crazy, but a big gingham turban and very large hoop earrings I could wear with a nice crisp shirt and a pair of jeans.’
Iris effortlessly mixed and matched couture fashion with inexpensive fashion finds from her travels. These included armfuls of bold bangles, weird and wonderful items from flea markets and opulent church vestments. Her control and manipulation of colour, texture and shape was highly original and stunningly beautiful.
At 96 years of age Iris had a Barbie doll made in her image and gleefully noted her greatest fans were six years old. In 2022 as she turned 100 she designed a fabulous women’s fashion collection for H&M and it sold out immediately.
In the photo (above) Iris models items for the H&M collection. It included brightly coloured women’s fashion and costume jewellery featuring green frogs with elegant shoes to match.
Iris became a superstar at 83 and was wickedly outspoken. She ruffled quite a few feathers making pointed comments about the sloppiness of gym clothes when worn outside the gym and the tasteless way folk dressed with zero regard to their body type.
Leisure wear was not her thing and she refused to wear it. At home she luxuriated in a fine robe. She was also scathing about what people did to try and maintain the illusion of youth.
‘If you’re 75, nobody’s going to think you’re 32. People who lie about their age are dopey. And getting carved up and trying to make your face look years younger is so stupid. Your hands are a dead giveaway.’
‘If you’re not interested, you’re not interesting’ was one of her strongly held beliefs.
Nobody ever had the audacity to cancel Iris Apfel – and if they had she would probably have found it hilarious. For Iris specialized in breaking the rules. With her large plastic framed glasses, chic bouffant silver hair, blood red lipstick and over the top outfits – complete with lashings of feathers and frills – there was nobody who could match her.
As designer Dries Van Noten put it, ‘I have rarely met someone as vivid, alive, vital, vivacious, irreverent, joyous and needed as Iris. She breathes young air, thinks young thoughts and gathers no dust.’
Iris adored the idea of ‘aging disgracefully’. Iris possessed wit, high intelligence, flaming creativity a roaring sense of humour.
In her own words she was, the world’s oldest living teenager.
Rest in peace Iris.
image: Iris Apfel modelling items from her highly successful H&M fashion collection.