Iris Apfel Volume 42.3
IRIS APFEL. Photograph courtesy of Zenni/Ruven Afandor.
INSTALLATION VIEW presenting a wide variety of folk and ethnographic jewelry and accessories, including Central Asian belts and pectorals, and a cloth sash and mask from the Pacific Northwest, from the “Rare Bird Of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” shown at the Norton Museum of Art, February 25 – May 27, 2007. Courtesy of Norton Museum of Art.
In 2005 I was in Manhattan, to exhibit my Tribalinks company’s jewelry and African home décor in the NYNOW trade show at the Javits Center. After the show, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my tradeshow assistant to see the Costume Institute’s new exhibit, “RARA AVIS: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection,” featuring the inimitable fashion icon’s collections of clothing and accessories. There was a large crowd viewing an electrifying grouping of mannequins, clothed in couture ensembles from top global designers, such as Dior, Versace, Givenchy, Ungaro, and more.
Each mannequin was accessorized with layers of necklaces and bracelets, which resulted in a dazzling effect. There was a subtle interplay of the fashionable clothes, overlaid with a wide variety of high and low-end costume jewelry, sourced from Moroccan souks, French flea markets, Afghanistan and India, lavish Turkish collections, and more. Apfel’s extravagant sense of style permeated the show, which demonstrated her ability to throw away rules and replace them with her exuberant strategy of experimenting completely outside the box. The models were presented with color over color, lavish feathers, multiple long bead strands, and at least six bangles on each wrist, of acrylic, silver, bone, and other materials both plain and exotic. No earrings necessary. I could see the ageless playfulness which accompanies Apfel’s creativity, and the joie de vivre which she exudes.
Also, each mannequin sported oversized owl-shaped glasses—the signature mark of the designer, Iris Apfel. She had broken many rules, and presented the show with great panache. Furthermore, she was becoming a “geriatric starlet,” as she said, at the age of 85! Now, at 100, she still regards herself as the world’s oldest teenager. She has been an extraordinary agent of change in fashion, especially in her use of over-scale jewelry.
Of course, the show at the Met, organized by Harold Coda in record time, was a raging success and she has since become a legendary iconic figure. In my travels to Morocco, a frequent question is about that lady with the big round eyeglasses—Iris. Everyone smiles in recognition.
As we toured the show I noticed one mannequin wearing a necklace adorned with a huge pair of gold Fulani (Peul) earrings, and was shocked to realize that they had been purchased from me. My trade show assistant kindly reminded me that, yes, Apfel had bought them at our Tribalinks booth in the NYNOW show. This was the beginning of a growing friendship and working relationship with Apfel, which has lead me to write what I know about her story. Her story, as larger-than-life as Apfel herself, is fashion history.
IRIS AND CARL APFEL. Photograph courtesy of Iris Apfel.
Iris Barrel Apfel was born in Astoria Queens on August 29, 1921. She was the only child of her parents, Samuel and Sadye Barrel, and was influenced by both, as her father was an importer of toys, antiques and musical instruments from Europe, and those themes can be found in abundance in Apfel’s amazing Manhattan and West Palm Beach homes. Her Russian-born mother was quite stylish, and owned a fashion boutique in Manhattan. So, her sense of play and also of high style started at a very early age, including playing with fabric swatches when she visited her grandmother. She was interested in eyeglasses as a child and began a collection because she liked them—not because she needed them, until later in life, when they became necessary, and a mainstay of her iconic chic identity.
She was educated in art and art history at the University of Wisconsin and New York University, and took her first job at Women’s Wear Daily, often known as the bible of fashion, in Greenwich Village as a copy girl. She then apprenticed with interior designer Elinor Johnson and fashion illustrator Robert Goodman.
She married the love of her life, Carl Apfel, in 1948, and they founded their company Old World Weavers in 1950. It was a textile business, where they specialized in fabric reproductions of antique global designs. The company continued until 1992, when they sold to Stark and retired, but their particular knowledge of textiles, plus her decades as a leading interior designer, led to restoration work in the White House, working under nine presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton. They also traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, collecting antiques, clothing and jewelry from their travels. This collecting has continued to today, and is still a source of great fun, excitement and discovery of the unusual for Apfel. She has said that she enjoys the hunt, and carries a long tradition of haggling for each purchase she makes—a requirement for acquisition.
Iris and Carl had a long, beautiful romance for sixty-eight years until his death in 2015, when he was nearly 101. She has mentioned to me more than once the value of a close relationship, and sees it reflected in my own marriage. Whenever we cross paths, she always asks me, “How’s your fella?”
In 2011, at age 90, Iris was asked to be a visiting professor at the University of Texas in Austin, in its School of Human Ecology’s Division of Textiles and Apparel. It was her idea to organize and bring her students to Manhattan to visit a host of the Who’s Who of the fashion world in her program, UT at NYC. There, she introduced her students to designers and the fashion market, in a whirlwind of visits. She’s very proud of her “kids”, and has been a major influence in the development of their careers, if not life-changing. She has said that her students’ achievements have been her greatest reward. The program has been endowed in her name, and she has left a great legacy.
INSTALLATION VIEW showing multiple ensembles that demonstrate Apfel’s bold and brave sense of style, from the “Rare Bird Of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” on view at the Norton Museum of Art, February 25 – May 27, 2007. Note how the mannequins are dressed up to look like high society attendees to the exhibition. Courtesy of Norton Museum of Art.
Another marker in her long list of achievements has been her four major museum shows. The first was the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan which I attended, showcasing her couture clothing collection paired with accessories and curated by Stephane Houy-Towner. The show featured ninety-five mannequins, adorned with Apfel’s magnificent wardrobe selections, paired with hundreds of pieces of jewelry, props, purses, and handbags, all presented as they were originally worn and styled by Iris herself.
The success at the Met generated a traveling version, exhibited in early 2007, at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a whimsical design, showing the mannequins as visitors to the exhibition.
Apfel designed and mounted this show, titled “Rare Bird Of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” which ran for three months. Also in 2007, for another four months, the exhibit traveled to the Nassau Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York—Apfel’s home town. Then, in 2009-10, the show made its triumphant return at the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, Massachusetts.
These massive museum shows showcased her astute sense of fashion, but even more so, her individual, over-the-top style. Her main interest is in using one’s own creativity to express one’s self through what they choose to wear, which she considers far more significant than fashion.
RARE BIRD OF FASHION INSTALLATION by Iris Apfel, who personally helped mount the exhibition, at Peabody Essex Museum. Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum. Photograph by Walter Silver.
As if being a longtime interior designer, business woman and fashion designer weren’t enough, Iris can list movie star among her accomplishments as well. In 2014, Albert Maysles produced a documentary called Iris, featuring Apfel, her life work and romance with her husband Carl, who was still alive at the time. Among the participants was fashion photographer Bruce Weber, who has taken numerous pictures of Apfel, and Harold Koda, the former chief curator for the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Met. Much of the story was filmed in her apartment, which is a concentrated space for her various collections of antiques, stuffed animals and other toys. When I’ve visited, there is no place to sit, as all the space is taken up by her various collections, which also include many fine paintings. Her sense of humor and mischievousness is evident everywhere you look.
A television film documentary, titled If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, directed by Danny Gold, premiered in 2017. The documentary followed writer-comedian Carl Reiner as he interviewed several “nonagenarians”, which of course counted among them Apfel herself.
She has been featured in numerous publications, and is the subject of two major books. The first, from 2007, is Rare Bird Of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel by Eric Boman, with large photographic plates from her museum shows. It is accompanied by an autobiographical text by Apfel herself, published by Thames and Hudson, including an introduction by Koda. In 2019 the book Iris Apfel, Accidental Icon: Musings of a Geriatric Starlet, was published by Harper, and includes Apfel’s comments about her richly varied life’s experiences. Her humor and impishness are shown in this publication, along with a good dose of advice about living.
As a designer, Apfel’s clothing company, RARA AVIS, includes her designs of jackets made from kantha textiles, long caftans and unapologetically large-scale costume necklaces in acrylic and other materials. Large scale chains are prevalent, as well as long strands of resins. Her designs are sold through Home Shopping Network. She enjoys creating accessories which are accessible to women at all income levels—a value which I have always shared in my own design works. She is currently collaborating with the company H&M on a collection of clothing and jewelry, primarily from recycled materials, to be available in the spring of 2022.
In 2019 she became the oldest living model for the modeling agency IMG at the age of 97. This woman appears to be ageless! She is currently designing and modeling for the eyeglass company ZENNI, as well as curating a home décor collection for Lowe’s. She is also the recipient of numerous awards, including a special award from the Women Together Foundation at the United Nations.
The ageless icon has given people a mission of finding out who they are, as individuals, and to take a playful approach to dressing, as we have done as children, playing “dress-up”.
INSTALLATION VIEW showing winterwear from the “Rare Bird Of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” on view at the Norton Museum of Art, February 25 – May 27, 2007. Courtesy of Norton Museum of Art.
IRIS APFEL WITH HER COTERIE AT THE 2013 NYNOW SHOW, featuring from left to right Juliet Brown, Phyllis Woods and Errol Rappaport. Photograph by George Welch.
Like a necklace, where one bead leads to another, my friendship with Iris has developed over years of annual meetings at the New York trade shows. Around two decades of encounters, in fact. Every August I bring my various collections of ethnic jewelry and treasures from my journeys to West Africa and Morocco, and Iris is a regular visitor, always looking for something different, something spectacular in scale. She loves this adventure, being a black belt shopper, and always pursues the largest strands of Moroccan resin, Malian indigo textiles and those extra large versions of Fulani earrings, which she doesn’t use as earrings, but rather as part of a necklace design. I have never personally seen Apfel in earrings. You can watch her energy increase as she inspects the textiles and long strands of rare beads. She loves to shop! She will try things on for scale, and also has asked me to model, say, an indigo fabric, and wear it as a shawl, then a skirt—all on my short non-model frame. This uproarious situation leads into gaiety and much laughter. Her visits generate a lot of interest and excitement for my fellow designers and exhibitors, who surround my booth with their cameras, all curious to see what she is buying. She also bargains like a tiger, and always wants a special price, but when the bargain is complete that tiger in her goes away.
I have to thank her especially for advancing large-scale jewelry in the fashion world, which has always been my trademark, but has not always been fashionable. She loves the look achieved by wearing multiple long strands of necklaces, reminiscent of the ethnic “hippy” trends of the 60s and 70s, as well as the current jewelry preferences of the hip hop crowd. She has championed this look, and my buyers are now coming to me, asking for “chunky”, longer necklaces. That’s Iris, leaving her mark on us. Thank you, Iris, for being bold, creative, real, funny, mischievous, full of energy, and inspiring us to grow as individuals. And this woman has no plans to slow down!
I recently asked Apfel about her contributions in the fashion world, and she responded that fashion is really a small part of it. The ageless icon has given people a mission of finding out who they are, as individuals, and to take a playful approach to dressing, as we have done as children, playing “dress-up”. Her advice is to learn how to be an individual, and not like everybody else. Her own style is achieved through her unapologetic piling on of long chunky necklaces and multiple bangles, and she enjoys the interplay of mixing high/low-end accessories over a couture ensemble, or over jeans, which she has championed since the 1940s. Then, throw on a feathered boa. Her personal style and dress is frisky and spontaneous, showcasing her experimental approach.
Her style also includes her frank and uncensored comments. She has many iconic quotes, as the following are sure to demonstrate:
“Jewelry is the most transformative thing you can wear.”
“I just never want to completely grow up.”
“Style is about self-expression, and above all, attitude.”
“Never be afraid to stop traffic.”
“Fashion you can buy, but style you possess.”
IRIS APFEL at her 100th birthday celebration in the Central Park Tower. Photograph by Phyllis Woods.
This story would not be complete without writing a little about Apfel’s 100th birthday celebration, held on September 9th in Manhattan’s new, tallest residential building in the world—the Central Park Tower, at 131 stories high. Appropriately, the party was on the 100th floor. When I asked her how she felt about turning one hundred she replied, “It’s a little scary,” and at the party she responded to questions about how it is to be a hundred, that she had only been so for a few days, and had to wait a while to know.
Apfel invited my husband and I to the birthday party, so we flew to New York, dressed up (I wore lots of jewelry, a la Iris), and went through the protocol—having to show our vaccination verification and be covid tested the afternoon of the event. We were greeted by the hosts, Harper’s Bazaar and H&M, and the party was held in a grand room with windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline and a huge portrait of Apfel by Ruven Afanador gracing one wall. There were many cakes, champagne and campari for the two hundred fifty guests, which included a star-studded list of who’s who from the fashion world and Apfel’s good friends.
Notable were Tommy Hilfiger, Donna Karan, Katie Holmes, Halle Bailey, and Alexis Bittar. The musician Michael Feinstein sang to Iris, and everyone belted out “Happy Birthday”. Guests were given masks and Zenni “Iris” style eyeglasses as well.
The room was jammed with everyone trying to greet Apfel, who was dressed in bright yellow organza, like a daffodil in full bloom. I struggled with the crowd and many photographers to capture her amazing presence. However, the bodyguards were far larger and taller than me, so jostling for a good shot was a major issue. I was fortunate to stoop low to capture her radiance, and her kindness as I see her, after a lot of strategy. The party ended at 10 P.M., and we took the elevator down those one hundred floors, having been treated to a magical Iris evening.
The legendary fashion icon was at her best, expressing her favorite quote, “More is more and less is a bore”. It was one of those “more” evenings, indeed.
SUGGESTED READING
Boman, Eric. Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.
Apfel, Iris. Iris Apfel, Accidental Icon: Musings of a Geriatric Starlet. New York: Harper Design, 2018.
Eckardt, Stephanie. “It Took Her 100th Birthday, But Iris Apfel Is Back to Dressing Up,” W Magazine 9/11/2021: https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/iris-apfel-hm-100-birthday-interview.
Kapner, Suzanne. “Iris Apfel Is Almost 100, and as Busy as Ever,” Wall Street Journal August 21, 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/iris-apfel-is-almost-100-and-as-busy-as-ever-11629518436.
IRIS APFEL OUTFITS. Photographs courtesy of Nassau County Museum of Art. Photographs by Max Yawney.
Phyllis Woods is a designer, whose jewelry style is contemporary and ethnic. She is also the founder of her company, TRIBALINKS, importing and wholesaling African art and home décor since 1990. In her designs she explores the links among tribal and ancient global cultures, and her jewelry reflects these influences. She uses a wide array of components, which include gold, silver, collectible beads, shell, gemstones, and more, and specializes in statement necklaces. Her colorations reflect desert influences of her home in the Sonoran desert. Woods has written about West African jewelry and the unique African Village vendors at Tucson for Ornament. She has traveled and worked extensively in West Africa and Morocco, and her designs are in national museums and galleries. Her studio and showroom are located in Tucson, Arizona. Prior to her long career in jewelry and ethnic crafts, she received a Master’s degree in anatomy/physiology from Indiana University, and wrote early papers on the T cell. She is also currently the President of the Board of Directors at the United Nations Association of Southern Arizona, a non-profit that donates to UNICEF.
