Iris Apfel, Celebrated Fashion Icon, Dies at 102
American interior designer and fashion icon, Iris Apfel, passed away in her home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Iris Apfel, known for her distinctive and eclectic style, died on Friday, March 1, in her Palm Beach, Florida home. The news was announced on her Instagram page with a post that read, “Iris Barrel Apfel, August 29, 1921–March 1, 2024."
The American businesswoman, born in Astoria, Queens on August 29, 1921, got her start as a copywriter for Women's Wear Daily after studying art history at New York University and art at the University of Wisconsin. However, she soon realized her penchant for interior design and apprenticed with interior designer Elinor Johnson, where she honed her skills in home decor and interior decoration. Two years after her marriage, Apfel and her husband Carl Apfel opened a textile firm, Old World Weavers, in 1948. Old World Weavers worked to restore antique textiles that belonged to bygone eras, and together, the couple traveled the world to find fabrics and furnishings that couldn’t be sourced in the U.S.
She soon began consulting on restoration projects in the White House throughout nine presidencies, starting with President Truman and ending with President Clinton. This earned her the nicknames “First Lady of Fabric” and “Our Lady of the Cloth."
"The White House was a relatively easy job. Everything had to be as close as humanly possible to the way it was," she told The Guardian in 2015.
Apfel and her husband retired in 1992 after selling their company, yet she continued as a force to be reckoned with years later. In 2005, a collection of items from her closet, including various designer pieces and costume jewelry, was displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an exhibition titled Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel. She also collaborated with brands like Coach and Kate Spade and even designed a collection for H&M. Apfel was also seen on the October 2016 cover of L'OFFICIEL Paris and a 2012 cover of Dazed. In 2019, she signed a modeling contract with IMG and released a collection of glasses, an accessory she's known to frequently fashion, with Zenni Optical.
It would be an understatement to say Apfel has carved a name for herself in the world of fashion and design. She believed in being unapologetically true to herself, and from youth to old age, carried herself with grace and style.
“When you don't dress like everyone else, you don't have to think like everyone else," Apfel famously wrote in her book Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon.
Her impact will be remembered.
