Un luminous farewell, with a maxi dress dotted with sparkles, golden bracelets and 100-shaped eyeglasses. The last photo that appeared on the Instagram profile which briefly announces her death. But years Iris Apfel he had accomplished, last August 26th, well 102. And from today onwards it rightfully enters the history of timeless icons of fashion and design.
His last post dates back to just two days ago, February 29, when he celebrated his “102 and a half years”. A little anecdote that tells a lot about his extroverted, irreverent, eccentric personality. A 100-year-old fashionista who has never stopped trending: everyone knew her, even outside the fashion system.
Iris Apfel, a career between design and fashion
Born in 1921 to a Jewish family in New York, her educational path is among the most classic: she studied History of Art. Since she was a child she has been fascinated by fabrics and clothes, and she spent her childhood in her mother’s boutique. Her first work experience was in one of the most authoritative magazines in the fashion business, Women’s Wear Daily. Aspiring journaliststart with photocopies.
His life changes with the meeting and marriage, in 1948, with Carl Apfel (died in 2015: they had no children). Love and work intertwine, and together they launch a textile company, the Old Wild Weavers, specialized in the reproduction of ancient fabrics. At the base, meticulous research, mostly in companies in southern Italy, which opens up a semi-unknown world to him. The textiles discovered by the spouses become in demand as works of art, and it is no coincidence that Iris Apfel participated in the renovation work of the White House for nine presidents, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.
Iris Apfel in 2021 in New York (Photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Central Park Tower).
After 42 years of honored career, when Old Wild Weavers closed in 1992, she dedicated herself only to her greatest passion: being herself. AND playing with fashion and design. Here the co-labs are starting to pour in – the latest, in chronological order, a colorful and low-cost collection for H&M in 2022, after multiple partnerships with brands such as CoachCitroën, Magnum, Happy Calze and Mac.
The exhibition at the Met in 2005
Passionate about fashion, even though at just 8 years old she declared “I have nothing to wear”, he collected clothes from the greatest designers of the twentieth century in his Park Avenue apartment. A treasure to which even the Met in New York dedicated a retrospective in 2005, Rara Avis: The Irreverent Iris Apfel. The eternal girl continues to set trends despite the passing of the years, and she reinvents herself ageless iconwearing in rotation her large glasses, the rainbow robes with oversized proportions, the feather coats that have earned her the nickname of The bird of fashion.
Record-breaking model
Self-proclaimed «the Oldest Teenager in the World”, he has a record: the oldest model ever hiredsigned by the IMG Models agency at the age of 96, in 2019. Among the career awards, the Women Together Special Award of the Year, delivered to her at the United Nations headquarters in 2016; but also, on the eve of his hundredth birthday, the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Awardthe highest recognition among the Creators Design Awards. A Barbie was also dedicated to her. And she got a professorship teaching fashion at the University of Austin, Texas.
Iris Apfel at one of the many fashion shows where she always sat in the front row (Photo: Getty Images).
Books and documentaries
To be recovered in the drawer of memories, theautobiography Iris Apfel: accidental icon. Reflections of a senior star, released in 2019 and full of anecdotes about his “colorful” existence. The fashion icon also had a book coming out, with a programmatic title Colorfulexpected in August 2024. To get to know her better while waiting, the documentary Iris (2014, signed by Albert Maysles, where she is seen, among other things, intent on finding her beloved jewels in the markets).
More is more and less is a bore
«One day someone told me “you’re not pretty and you never will be, but it doesn’t matter, you have something much more important: you have style”», he loved to tell. Although the share of her to remember is «More is more and less is a bore»(literally, More is more, less is boring). In his honor, let’s abandon the black uniform, the jeans with the sweater and dare to be different. At least for a day…
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