Iris Apfel: US fashion designer dies aged 102 [SPLIT]

[Essex Boy]

^
In the immortal words of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, "Men age like wine; women age like milk".

 

[KaraBulut]

^
In the immortal words of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, "Men age like wine; women age like milk".

Mother Teresa apparently never attended an American high school reunion.

 

[belamyi]

But, one must believe doors opened to her not only due to her family's business connections and wealth, but her beauty.

These women are desperate to remain relevant.

She worked in an industry where subtle is rarely lionized, and not appreciated by the ignorant anyway. And if fashion isn't targeted to the ignorant, then Rodeo Drive wouldn't be there.

No.

Yes!

YESSSSSS!!!!

 

[rareboy]

Jesus Christ. I have never seen homos get so worked up about the death of a person they didn't know or even know of.

I look at all the other non-celebs and sometimes wildly over-rated celebrities and artists and wonder where all the pearl clutching was over their shuffling off the mortal coil.

 

[belamyi]

No.
In a time in which Babe Paley represented the standard of beauty, Iris, like Nan Kempner, or even Carmen Dell'Orefice, let alone The Diana Vreeland, were not considered "beautiful", and precisely had to made up for it by being "interesting", "extra" stylish and what not.

Yes!
Since fashion was the main way in which she was made relevant to the people who were not family and friends, she had to focus on keeping her character married to fashion in whatever way was fitter for her.
Whatever one wears has to ultimately fit somehow and depend on the bodyshape you carry under them, so the basic foundation of her style in later years was not the garish, but the "cone" (make as many silly plays on iconic as you please) shape of her outfits, which screened as much as possible her body and enhanced her styles which, as we said above, were mostly about accessorizing her fashion-savviness for the palate of the shallow ignorant.

YESSSSSS!!!!

 

[belamyi]

Jesus Christ. I have never seen homos get so worked up about the death of a person they didn't know or even know of.

I look at all the other non-celebs and sometimes wildly over-rated celebrities and artists and wonder where all the pearl clutching was over their shuffling off the mortal coil.

Jesús follando a Cristo, I never thought it would be so hard to understand that we are discussing styles, fashion and careers built on them, not "the death of a person".
If it was a joke and you do understood, by now your zombie attempts at a joke are staler now than the deceased's body

You mean you never understood the overreaction in those cases or, on the contrary, you always missed the due overreaction in all those cases?

 

[belamyi]

Mother Teresa apparently never attended an American high school reunion.

Mom Teresa, like most people, never saw men age: they take them for granted and keep clutching to the neck of women as they age.

Even "in natural conditions" that maxime will not have a pass: men may have some physiological advantage, but they waste it away in their first years.

 

[KaraBulut]

...Iris Apfel was of the other ilk. She was young, beautiful, and had a leg up on any women who had to make their way from the ground up. Her parents owned businesses and in the scrappy 1920's, she was wealthy enough to begin collecting antique jewelry as a child.

While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it is fair to say that she didn't exactly have the all-American WASPy looks that were popular when she was young.

You might want to watch the Maysels documentary (every Maysels documentary is worth a watch, for that matter).

There's a quote from an interview that Apfel did where she talks about being told when she was young that she wasn't pretty. According to one of the interviews that I saw with Mrs Apfel, Frieda Loehmann told her, "Young lady, I've been watching you You're not pretty, and you'll never be pretty. But, it doesn't matter. You have something much better. You have style."

Presumably that influenced her sense of accessories and eventually her work in interior design and decorating.

In one of the interviews that I saw, she said that she started with a fascination for eyewear as a teenager and it developed from there.

Her career came from her college-level education and the business she founded with her husband. She did have a degree in art history and attended art school. The Apfels' company focused on historic textiles.

I don't think what she was doing was fashion, as much as it was her personal sense of style. The times that I saw her in person, it wasn't as gaudy as the overly frilly costumes that are the more popular pictures of her. Every winter, there's a group of wealthy women that descend upon Boca and Palm Beach. For the locals, it's like having flocks of pigeons and crows fly in for the winter. Every hotel and restaurant and shopping mall in the area is infested. Iris was like a parrot in the flock of pigeons and crows. She definitely stuck out.

In one of the interviews, she made a distinction between "fashion" and "style": "Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There's no how-to road map to style. It's about self-expression and, above all, attitude."

 

[NotHardUp1]

^
In the immortal words of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, "Men age like wine; women age like milk".

That would only be because men generally live shorter lives.

There are plenty of men in their 90's who left fine wine long behind, and are clearly into vinegar with the mother and all.

 

[belamyi]

The sense of it is based on the prejudice that a woman must be fresh and pretty, while a withered man can be considered "interesting".

 

[Araucaria]

^Are we still discussing that old trope? In my experience, I've noticed that all too often, men seem to age like stale beer in plastic cups left after a frat house party.

 

[Latimer]

I can't emphasize enough that in founding Old World Weavers, Apfel and her husband created a small but important fabric house and that the fabrics were not apparel fabrics but furniture and drapery fabrics. She made her mark in the decorating and design world before being taken up by the fashion crowd in her later years:

"Iris and her husband Carl, who she married in 1948, traveled all over the world attending international flea markets and bazaars to source furniture and rare fabrics for personal inspiration as well as design projects. But with such a high demand for these treasured fabrics, sourcing them for large-scale projects became close to impossible. This inspired the duo to found Old World Weavers in 1950, in order to replicate the magnificent historic fabrics found on their travels, from European flea markets to North African souks. Old World Weavers became a runaway success, known (then and now) for its blend of sophisticated historical design, and an exotic, world-travelled aesthetic. Iris brought her overseas inspiration to life through many high-profile projects, including the White House under nine presidents, the State Department, [and] the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

https://www.theinside.com/blog/history-of-old-world-weavers/

 

[NotHardUp1]

This split is actually a good thing. The topic morphed into her relevance, and contrasting views on her philosophy of style, so it deserved it's space to happen without derailing the death thread. Now, watch it sink anyway .

 

[rareboy]

 

[NotHardUp1]

Yeah, I should have written "it's" but it's happens.

 

[rareboy]

That is not what the giggle was about....

 

[NotHardUp1]

That is not what the giggle was about....

Maybe not what YOUR giggle was about, but I laugh every time I see one of these typos after the fact. I know grammar rules and spelling quite well, yet my brain and fingers conspire against me.

 

[rareboy]

I note that Iris was still designing fabrics and rugs until even recently.

 

[Latimer]

Iris Apfel, interior designer and fashion icon, 1921 — 2024

The ‘geriatric starlet’ helped decorate the homes of nine US presidents before finding fame in her eighties

www.ft.com