Theres no glamour or mysTery any more.

Ce
The fashion world has fallen head over heels for Iris Apfel, the 91-year-old self-styled geriatric starlet known for her technicolour wardrobe and salty soundbites. She invites Jeffrey Podolski to her Park Avenue apartment to talk First Ladies, flea markets and the Queens inimitable style

Portraits by

Fashion director

THOMAS WHITESIDE NATHALIE RIDDLE

62

deluxe

s ta n da r d.c o.u k /l i f e s t y l e

re. CelebriTies look like They rolled in The mud

Iris Apfel in her Manhattan apartment, November 2012. Clothes throughout, Iriss own

Deluxe

s ta n Da r D.c o.u k /l i f e s t y l e

63

iris apfel

m dopey, declares iris apfel. i usually dont drink. i hope im coherent. the 91-year-old, arguably Manhattans most celebrated fashion muse du jour, is more than coherent. she is refreshingly to the point and possesses an incorrigibly salty tongue. shes just returned from a late lunch at the cipriani Downtown restaurant. she and her 98-year-old husband carl favour the cipriani around the corner from their upper east side Park avenue apartment, but dont go there as often as they would like since were both so bony, we cant sit in those chairs. (technically they are florida residents, they have an apartment in Palm Beach.) Despite knocking back a couple of glasses of Montepulciano dabruzzo, iris is still smarting from last nights election where she saw that half-wit Barack obama re-elected (im not a republican, im an intelligent) and admits to being pretty pooped from the last week in which she travelled to the Peabody essex Museum in salem, Massachusetts. she has bequeathed her sizeable collection of vintage clothing to the museum, even though practically every major collection in the country wooed her for its contents. so many of them are dopily run, says iris, who normally spends her days at home schlunking around in jeans and a shirt (or, if chilly, a flannel pyjama top), though when she ventures out she refuses

to appear as some ragpicker. Dressed today in a vintage Gianfranco ferre black riding jacket, zebra-patterned double-faced cashmere trousers, ankle-high red Wellingtons, and large, black resin chains featuring tiny pearls, she briefly looks at a card from the museum, thanking her for her appearance, but doesnt bother to glance at the accompanying flowers, leaving them for the housekeeper to unwrap in the turquoise kitchen. But she is grateful, particularly for the complimentary limousine that the museum sent to transport the couple there and back. they treated us like royalty, she says. this wasnt always the case. for most of her life, iris has been incognito, an anonymous textile designer who worked for a number of americas first ladies. that is, until seven years ago when the new york Metropolitan Museum of art launched Rara Avis: Selections from The Iris Barrel Apfel Collection, a blockbuster show that detailed her highly eclectic, yet exquisite art of mixing couture and the unexpected. the Met had never before honoured a living woman who wasnt a designer and the show went on to tour the country to delighted crowds (as word spread, carla fendi, Giorgio armani and karl lagerfeld took in the new york exhibition). in the fickle world of fashion, iris herself admits that she thought her instant fame would peter out and id be an accidental icon.

she insists that she prefers being under the radar, but one cant help but sense a certain satisfaction at all the accolades. she remains a savvy businesswoman (id go bananas if i werent working) and can now claim numerous new lines of merchandise, ranging from a handbag collection named extinctions by iris apfel (featuring, among other things, Mongolian lamb, haircalf and colourful reptile skins) to a Home shopping network line of offbeat, bold, sculptural, and ethnically influenced jewellery (as well as highly styled flats that will debut early next spring). she has graced the pages of Vogue Italia (photographed by Bruce Weber, with whom she has since become great friends) and, at 91, is, without question, the oldest cover girl to appear on the front of Dazed & Confused. iris describes her textile designs as classic but over the top. the same could be said for her personal style, a brash mlange of high and low fashion. sometimes i wear couture with fleamarket finds. its all over the map. style is all a matter of attitude and how you wear it. im hardly a minimalist. Her cosy, warmly lit apartment (in a historic building whose occupants include the philanthropist iris cantor) is stuffed with furniture referencing her varying interests, whether it be good french Provenal or the fanciful type of english regency (Georgian is too uptight). there are paintings of an 18th-century spanish

I dont lIke makIng chItchat where people mIll around and drInk. we dont go to many balls theyre borIng
Deluxe

s ta n Da r D.c o.u k /l i f e s t y l e

67