Style icon Iris Apfel dies at 102

Why wear one necklace when you can wear five? The more attention-grabbing, the better! And, if you're going to wear glasses, they might as well be bold. These were words to live by for style icon and fashion and interior designer Iris Apfel, who died on March 1, aged 102, at her home in Florida.

Her oversize round glasses became her trademark and her style was so iconic, emojis were made in her likeness.

Even as a centenarian, Apfel never shied away from wearing extravagant clothes and eye-catching makeup. She colored her hair light gray and chose to wear bright red, pink or orange lipstick.

When she turned 100, she was dubbed the "oldest teenager in the world," and at the time of her death, her Instagram account had more than 3 million followers.

Apfel's guiding philosophy has also been widely quoted: "I don't have any rules, because I would only be breaking them, so it's a waste of time."

That was her recipe for success right from the start.

Apfel was all about accessories

Born in New York City in 1921, Apfel grew up during the Great Depression. Her mother advised her to buy a single simple black dress — that way she would always have something to wear, since it suited both casual and more formal contexts. Accessories, her mother said, would make or break the outfit. Young Iris never forgot her mother's advice.

At age 11, she found a brooch she really wanted in a basement shop in New York's Greenwich Village. It cost $0.65, and she saved up to buy it.

It was her first shopping experience, and it launched one of the largest private jewelry collections in the United States.

Known for her curiosity, sense of humor

Apfel never stopped hunting for the right accessory in boutiques of all price ranges, at flea markets and in secondhand shops. She had a knack for pairing items no one else would consider combining, often mixing haute couture with junk store finds, as well as shapes and patterns that supposedly do not go together. But when Apfel wore them, they ended up looking incredible. She was an unabashed trendsetter.

Young fashion designers flocked around her wherever she appeared, whether at a gallery opening or a fashion show.

Apfel presented her own collections with humor as well as meticulousness. She often added the finishing touch to a model's look — perhaps an extra necklace — before sending them out on the catwalk.

It wasn't until later in life that she started working as a fashion designer. For decades, she was a successful interior designer who was in great demand among the rich and famous in the US.

Her fabric creations were unique. Together with her late husband, Carl, to whom she was married for 68 years, Apfel traveled all over the world to find inspiration. She worked with various weavers to make her very specific ideas into reality and she specialized in reproducing forgotten fabrics from past centuries.

Apfel's reputation even brought her to the White House, where she worked for nine US presidents. Even though she never revealed too many details about working with them, she hinted at the fact that former first lady Jackie Kennedy was a rather challenging client.

Metropolitan Museum exhibition changed everything

Apfel became a true fashion icon after a 2005 exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Harold Koda, the curator at the time, had heard of Apfel's jewelry and clothing collection and that she had dedicated several rooms in her apartment on New York's Park Avenue to these acquisitions. Creations by Dior, Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent and Ungaro hung next to flea market finds and items from department stores.

Koda worked his way through Apfel's collection and finally transported around 300 items of clothing and several hundred accessories to the museum. The resulting exhibition was a huge success — and Apfel became a pop culture icon.

After her husband died in 2015, shortly before his 101st birthday, Apfel did not retire but instead launched a number of new projects. Among other things, she designed jewelry for the elderly with integrated technology that checks the wearer's health and alerts an ambulance in case of an emergency.

“I’m so busy, I’m like a crazy person. I love to work.” she told US fashion publication, Women's Wear Daily, in 2018. She said she needed to work to deal with the loss of her "darling husband." 

Apfel was irritated by the fact that older people were often forgotten by fashion designers, and repeatedly pointed out that no older woman can identify with 15-year-old models. In fact, she ended up signing her first modeling contract at the age of 97.

'More is more'

Even at 100, Apfel didn't think of stepping back from her active working life. She continued to work as an interior designer and curated a collection for Lowe's, a US home improvement store.

She also continued to design new glasses for her eyewear collection, including reading glasses with bold frames.

Apfel said she had ever subscribed to the motto, "less is more." She believed that following trends was unnecessary and that people should find their own unique style to express personality through clothing. As she liked to say: "More is more and less is a bore."

This article was originally written in German.