Iris Apfel, the renowned stylist and self-dubbed “geriatric starlet,” passes away at the age of 102.
Iris Apfel
If only all lives could be as opulent as that of Iris Apfel. The renowned interior designer, businesswoman, and fashion model in her later years passed away in Palm Beach on Friday, according to her agents. Her age was 102 years.
Raised in Queens, New York, she was born Iris Barrel in 1921. Her father was a wealthy small company owner, and she first worked as a copywriter for Women’s Wear Daily after studying art and art history.
In 1950, Apfel and her husband Carl launched a textile and fabric replication company. Her company oversaw the renovation of the White House under nine presidents, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.
Apfel was well-known for her charm and work ethic, but her unique style—many bangles, necklaces, and those iconic heavy-framed, saucer-sized glasses—also contributed to her rise to prominence as a late-life fashion icon, or “geriatric starlet,” as she frequently called herself.
As Apfel grew older, her fame continued to shine. She was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, ninety years old. She was the focus of a well-reviewed documentary by Albert Maysles (Iris) at the age of 94. She started modeling professionally at the age of 97 and was signed to the prestigious agency IMG. She was the oldest person to have had a Barbie doll created in her likeness at the time of her death. She posed for Vogue Italia, Kate Spade, and M.A.C.
A society grand dame who was not above selling scarves and jewelry on the Home Shopping Network, Apfel received a 2005 retrospective at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel was a first for the museum in showcasing clothes and accessories created by a living non-fashion designer. Her autobiography, Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon, was published in 2018.Apfel stated to journalist Ina Jaffe in a 2015 NPR piece that she was proud of the individuals she has impacted over the years. One individual she met, she recalled, declared that Apfel had transformed her life.
The designer recollected with delight, “She said I learned that if I don’t have to dress like everybody else, I do not have to think like everybody else.” “And I thought, boy, if I could do that for a few people, I accomplished something.”
Lori Sale, her agency, described the designer as a “visionary.”
She had enormous, unusual spectacles perched on her nose that gave her a unique perspective on the world. She perceived the world as a canvas of prints and patterns, a kaleidoscope of color, via those spectacles. She stated in a statement, “Her ability to merge the unexpected with the exquisite and her creative eye that turned the ordinary into the remarkable was nothing short of wonderful.
According to jewelry designer Alexis Bittar, “she became a beacon for so many people,” in a message that Sale published. “Through living her life on her own terms it messaged to women that they don’t need to hide in the shadows as they age, they actually can continue to glow and get better at what they do and look like.”
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