Iris Apfel is an American Businesswoman, Interior Designer, and Fashion Icon.
Apfel has been the subject of a string of museum exhibitions, a coffee table book, a fashion advertising campaign, and has long been a magnet to those devotees of fashion who worship her eccentric style.
Iris Apfel and her husband Carl founded their own textile firm ’Old World Weavers’ in 1952. It all began when Iris was looking for a certain fabric she couldn’t find, then designed it herself after an old sample and had it woven.
They traveled all over the world to find designs and then the fabricators, asking them to use their original looms. The fabrics were expensive, but crafted by hand and not meant for mass production anyway. Iris recreated patterns she hunted down from old books, museums, second-hand shops and flea markets. Her limited audience contained some very loyal clientele, like Estee Lauder, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Jacqueline Onassis and Greta Garbo. Iris and Carl were called by the White House through nine presidential administrations, to produce exact reproductions of fabrics for furniture, walls and draperies.
Apfel is 92 years old now and thinks her sudden cult status is very funny.
It all started when the Costume Institute wanted to borrow some of her accessories and clothes to put them in context. Then Pandora’s box opened, her closets, drawers, boxes and armoires contained so many treasures, the museum decided to do an exhibition exclusively about her and her wardrobe.
The exhibition was called ‘Iris Apfel: Rare Bird of Fashion’.
The exhibition included some of Apfel’s collection of exquisite pieces by ratified Paris and New York designers: there was a coat of multicolored rooster, duck and fowl feathers by Jean-Louis Scherrer from 1962, and an orange jumpsuit by Geoffrey Beene from the early 80s. But what made the show a word-of-mouth success was the unique way Apfel wore these pieces, which was recreated on the mannequins.
Apfel has a story to tell about each of her outfits; she insists that hers is not a fashion collection, because she bought every piece to wear. “I’m a hopeless romantic. I buy things because I fall in love with them. I never buy anything just because it’s valuable,” she says. The unifying principle is excess.
In the short time since her sudden fame Iris has designed a jewelry collection for yoox.com and a make up collection for Mac.
Apfel also consults and lectures about style and other fashion topics.
In 2013, she was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by The Guardian.
“For me the key to personal style lies in accessories. My friends tell me that my oversized glasses and my pairs of bracelets have become my unwritten signature. I have amassed an enormous ‘collection’ of bags, belts, bangles and beads without which I would be lost. One can change the entire look of an outfit by substituting one accessory for another. I love objects from different worlds, different eras, combined my way. Never uptight, achieving – hopefully – a kind of throwaway chic.”
– IRIS APFEL
RARA AVIS
Means Rare Bird.
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