FASHION ICON IRIS APFEL: 10 INTERESTING FACTS
It was the Costume Institute Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in 2005, curated by Harold Koda that catapulted Iris Apfel, to a career as a supermodel, muse and collaborator for renowned brands. She was the first living person who was not a designer to have her clothing and accessories exhibited there.
She is now also the first women over hundred to make a collaboration with H&M.
Iris Apfel is the only person over hundred to have more than 2 Million followers on Instagram.
She was one of the first women to wear jeans at a time only men were wearing them. She was at the University of the Wisconsin when her vision for denim struck and said “the only people who wore jeans were Paul Bunyan and a few lumberjacks.
Iris Apfel created personal style. According to her, finding one’s personal style is hard work as you need to be brave, try various styles and see also how people react to them and decide how important their reaction is to you. To best describe her style she says about herself: “I don’t have any rules, because I would be breaking them. In order to find your own personal style, you have to be true to yourself, not be a trend follower and be ready to take a few risks.”
Her signature style comes from her freedom of dressing and from accessorizing her outfits. For her, costume jewellery is the most transformative of all accessories. With a simple black dress you can go from lunch, to cocktails and a gala, just by changing accessories. Her love for costume jewellery comes from her mother who she describes as her role model.
Iris spends lots of time teaching young designers of the importance of fabrics and fashion history. Her belief is that in order to be able to break the rules you need to master them.
With her late husband Carl, she founded Old World Weavers in 1950, a small interior design textile company to recreate original fabrics from the beginning of the 19th Century and reproduce fabrics they found while traveling the world. They went on to work with nine administrations of the White House.
For the launch of her book, Iris Accidental Icon, Bergdorf Goodman created an Iris Apfel Barbie.
At her Palm Beach house she has Christmas decorations around the house all year long. Iris has kept the freedom of a child’s spirit towards was she likes or doesn’t.
Katja Noschis Delaloye Fashion Brand Strategist
