Monday 16 May 2011

Iris Apfel in Architectural Digest

I am smitten by people who are not scared by their individuality. 
People who are not affraid to express their style and personality. 
Who are affirmative about life.
Let me show you one of them. 


This is colourful, idiosyncratic, richissime Iris Barrel Apfel.
I first saw her in a Town and Country feature,
but what really made me look at Iris Apfel with more interest was her interview with Simon Doonan in Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You



This is one of the books I read and said:
"God, thank you for your very versatile creation!"

Here are some favorite quotes by Ms. Apfel

"Q: What is the most eccentrically glam thing in your closet?
A: Me. It's not that my clothes are so eccentric. It's the way I put them together"

About her husband:
"...And we laugh. You might as well be dead if you cannot have fun"

"Q: Where do you wish to be buried, and in what?
A:I would rather stick around"

Ms. Apfel lives with her husband, Carl, in a Park Avenue apartment that is every inch as colourful, bohemian and stylish as herself.

Layers of one's stuff, books and colour. A lived in space. An interior that speaks to my heart.
 Iris Apfel in her own words:

If her distinctive fashion sense attracted her first clients when she set up her own design firm after the war’s end (“I guess people thought if I could decorate myself I could decorate a room or two,” she comments), it was her eye for unique furnishings and objects, as well as her facility with color and texture, that brought her instant success.
“People write to me: ‘You’ve changed my life!’” She pauses for a minute, bending over to adjust a passementerie-covered throw pillow before affirming, “I’m giving them permission to be individual again.”
Throughout history clothes represented who you were; they are a great vehicle for explaining who you are.
I used to take those beige cardboard tubes that are used for masking tape and draw designs on them with black pens and wear them as bracelets. I have a whole collection of those. You can make all kinds of wonderful stuff. All you need is a little imagination. I don’t know what happens to people’s imaginations. We have it when we’re young, but so many lose it when we grow up.
'I mean, I think whimsy and fancy are so wonderful. Everything is so grey outside. So you might as well have a little fun with what you can.'

Her own style icons:

Millicent Rogers
Rosalind Russell

{ The Iris Apfel Architectural Digest interview here and her appartment here, as told to Mitchell Owens, photographed by Joshua McHugh}.
Another interview at The Telegraph here.

Read:



Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel

love, Irene

1 comment:

erleichda said...

I have to admit never heard of her... so thanks for shearing. I have a lot of reading to do ; )

Best buys