The late Iris Apfel on 17 ways to live fabulously

Iris Apfel was a one-off: an interiors designer by trade who, in her eighties, suddenly became a global fashion icon. Instantly recognisable by her maximalist outfits that always included a pair of outsized glasses, she was a regular on the front row of fashion shows and was the subject of an acclaimed 2014 documentary, by the Grey Gardens director Albert Maysles.
This octogenarian career change was all thanks to a 2005 exhibition at the New York Met. Despite being little known outside the world of interior design, Apfel had a reputation as an avid collector of clothes and costume jewellery. She was persuaded to lend some of her collection for a show and the result, Rara Avis, became a roaring success.
She was born in 1921 in Queens, New York, and style ran in her family: her mother owned a boutique, her father supplied upmarket mirrors to decorators. As a child, Apfel loved fashion: a weekly treat was to take the train into Manhattan to browse the shops. After studying art history at New York University, she started a business sourcing furnishings, something that was in short supply after the Second World War. She married Carl Apfel in 1948, and the two of them launched the interior design company Old World Weavers, whose clients included the White House (they decorated for nine presidents).
The couple sold the company in 1992 and retired to New York and Palm Beach — until Iris’s second blooming as a fashion figure. After 67 years of marriage, Carl, who she said “pushed me into the limelight and then basked in my success”, died in 2015, aged 100. Last summer, after her 102nd birthday, Iris decided to write her “legacy book”, Colourful, sharing stories from her life as well as her tips on how to live well.
As her friend the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger says in the book, “Iris is a force of nature. She’s not only a fashion icon, but a fashion creator. She understands colours and fabrics better than anyone else. I know that the way she lives her life and puts herself together inspires people from all walks of life.” Here, then, is how to live more like Iris.
We need colour in our lives because life can be very drab — on the worst days, an absolute wasteland. Colour adds pep. Colour adds dignity. Colour is an integral part of all the good things that you’re living. And it makes the not-so-good-things more palatable too. I’ve never met a colour I didn’t like, but there are tones that I dislike — nothing murky or muddy, thank you. Me, I’m primarily cheerful Chinese red and turquoise blue. I have never been a “neutral” person. I’m not a pastel person either. Pastels make me nervous.
I am a sponge. I learn by osmosis, soaking up and absorbing ideas all the time, things I don’t realise I am taking in. I store it all away until the moment I need it, and then it pops out. My father did me a big favour when I was growing up by insisting that if I really wanted to succeed in the world, I had better meet and understand what every kind of person was about.
I consider myself a life-long student. Nothing and no one exists in a creative vacuum, at least not in my life. Everything — and everyone — is inspiration. Even bad experience is good inspiration. Experience is the texture and pattern that makes a life interesting. You don’t want a smooth blank canvas, do you?
As an interior decorator, I travelled all around the world. Setting foot on European soil in the early 1950s changed my life for ever. Oh, the architecture of London and Paris — I adored it. Italy, Greece. Then we went further afield to Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco, Pakistan, you name it. I was absorbing every day, seeing and learning, in every place.
They have to have some heft. Now I have more pairs than I could count — and the bigger and brighter, the better.
It’s the most important thing about having a style: you have to know who you are. You’ve got to be very strict with your own foundation. Mrs Loehmann, the godmother of discount shopping, was the first person who told me I had something special. I discovered her store, Loehmann’s, in Brooklyn, one rainy day in my late twenties, just after I was married. I’d sashay about the shop and she would fixate on me. One day she said, “Young lady, I’ve been watching you. You’re not pretty and you’ll never be pretty. Don’t let anybody ever con you into that. But it doesn’t matter. You have something much better. You have style.”
I’m a big believer in investment pieces — good clothes last for ever. I even wore a pink wedding dress. It was strapless, lace, fitted with a full skirt and had a little cape with it. I’m really very practical, so I wanted something I could wear afterwards for formal occasions and not just put in storage. I still have my matching pale-pink satin shoes.
I love to dig around and find things in my own closet that surprise me. But sometimes I wear what I had on the day before too, because it’s all put together already and I can just jump into it, jump on my broom and fly off!
My first big job in beauty and fashion came when I was the tender age of 90 — when I designed a line of cosmetics for Mac. Nothing in life or art is written in stone. I don’t have any rules because I would only be breaking them, so it’s a waste of time.
I’d honestly get more kick out of a drop-dead discount ring or bangle that cost four dollars than a visit to Harry Winston. I have a strong neck and arms from all the crazy necklaces and bangles — sometimes you have to suffer for your art. I just don’t care about diamonds and I’m not interested in fine jewellery. I think manufacturers and artists are much more creative with costume jewellery, because the materials aren’t so expensive, so they can take more chances and do more interesting pieces.
If that’s happening, I say abandon the whole thing. Once you take it too seriously, it’s a curse. It’s better to be happy than well dressed and not yourself. Who wants to look in the mirror and see someone else? I get asked, “What is the most important thing about an outfit?” I believe it’s the person inside it.
• Read our obituary for Iris Apfel
Big difference. I really believe there would be a lot less cruelty and coldness in the world if more people remembered what it was like to be a child and listened to that inner child.
If life is a party, it’s the people that make it. You can have a spectacular setting and wonderful food and all those things, but if the company isn’t fun, it’s nothing. I think curiosity and humour are the two great gifts that I got in my cradle and I seek out people who have them too.
Carl used to say I look at a piece of fabric and listen to the threads. It tells me a story. It sings me a song. It’s a coup de foudre, a bolt of lightning. It’s fun to get knocked out that way! If you apply that idea, through your choice of accessories, you can make anything individual and make it your own. That’s advice from the depths of the Depression, but it still applies today.
I’m a free spirit. I like everything to be free. Trust yourself and take risks. I have never been much of a conformist on any front, and it hasn’t hurt me yet, so I think I’ve been doing something right. Freedom of expression, and actually expressing yourself, is the most important thing, because if you don’t, you’re all bottled up.
Carl and I never stopped having fun. I don’t think you want to smother anyone, or be jealous. My husband always gave me all the space I needed, including in the closet.
Doing new things takes a lot of strength. A lot of energy. It can be very tiring trying to make things happen, to push fears aside. It’s much easier to go with the flow — that’s what most people do. But it’s not very interesting.
Colourful by Iris Apfel (Ebury £40). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members