Iris Apfel, Fashion’s Favorite Nonagenarian, Talks About Style, Love, & Her New Film
Everyone loves Iris Apfel. The 93 year-old, known for her oversized black glasses and the piles of chunky jewelry she sports around her neck and wrists, became an unlikely fashion icon in her ‘80s. It was her amazing collection of clothes and her unique personal style that earned her the spotlight, but it’s her sense of humor and personality that have made her a timeless icon.
It was not surprising then that famed filmmaker Albert Maysles – of Grey Gardens fame – expressed interest in telling Apfel’s story. (Well, it wasn’t surprising for us, but as you’ll read below, Apfel felt differently.) For four years, Maysles trailed Apfel and her 100 year-old husband Carl, and the final product, a film appropriately titled Iris, which will be released on Wednesday, is a beautiful film that reveals not only the woman behind the jewelry, but the amazing relationship that she and her husband have. You’ll come to the movie for the over-the-top fashion, but you’ll stay for a magnificent portrait of what it’s like to be in love, and what it’s like to be in love for 65 years. We sat down with Apfel, and talked about love, being a working woman back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and Kanye West, naturally.
YAHOO STYLE: When you were approached to do the documentary, what was the pitch?
IRIS APFEL: They called me up and I said no. I said, “Why?” I wasn’t well known. I had nothing to sell. I have no legal problems. Who needs it? So I told some friends and they all said I was crazy. I told Linda Fargo {Bergdorf Goodman’s Director of Women’s fashion} and she said to me, “You must be nuts! People would kill to have Albert even take a photograph of them, and he wants to do a documentary on you, and you have the gall to say no. Who the hell do you think you are?” Anyway, he called me again and invited me to come up to Harlem to his studio and I did. We fell in love. I didn’t know how he’d handle me. I said, I always like to try knew things, so I said I’d give it a whirl. I had no idea it was no script. He doesn’t work that way. And it went on for almost four years because we were never in the same place at the same time.
YS: I thought the film was about you but it was also about love, and about your relationship with your husband. Did that surprise you— the way it was captured?
IA: I didn’t know what to expect, and to tell you the truth, tomorrow night I will see the film in its entirety. I never saw it when it was in work. And at Lincoln Center they sat me in the very first row because there was a Q&A and they didn’t want me running down the steps. I’m very far sighted so I had to sit there with my neck all the way back, and I was rewarded with a stiff neck. I couldn’t see half the things. And the next time it was at another festival and people were pulling me all over. So I hope to see it. And they’ve made some minor changes. I know I’m wildly surprised at the reception that everybody is so taken with it.
YS: It’s a beautiful film!
IA: That’s what they tell me.
YS: Do you remember your first date with your husband?
IA: Oh yes. I almost didn’t get there. It was kind of funny because Carl and I had made a date for six o’clock on a Sunday evening. My roommate was being married at a place called Louis Sherry. It was opposite the Waldorf and she introduced me to some guy who she wanted me to meet. And we got on famously. During lunch he said, I want to take you to dinner. And I said, that would be lovely but I have a date. And he said, “No, no. Break it, break it.” I kept saying no and he kept trying. Finally, I said, ok, I won’t go. We were sitting around and all of the sudden the church bell said six o’clock and I said, “I’m so sorry I have to go.” And I ran across the street, and I had my date with Carl. I remember he took me to Longchamp for dinner. I was in business and I used to have to make so many decisions so I never knew what to order when I went to a restaurant. And he ordered for me.
YS: What did he order for you?
IA: He ordered me a chopped steak, done a certain way. We had all the fixings and I just loved it. And I thought, well that’s pretty good. Anyway, we had a very fast courtship. That was Columbus Day. Thanksgiving he proposed. Christmas I was blinged,.Washington’s Birthday we were married. And St. Patrick’s Day was the finish of our honeymoon. We’re married now sixty-seven and a half years.
YS: It seems like it was an unorthodox relationship for the time, since you were working and you both traveled together. Was that ever strange. Did people expect you to stay at home, or did you just not care?
IA: People always did, but I don’t care what other people say. When I was 19, I was trying to do everything that was expected of me and I was miserable. Miserable! And I decided the hell with them. I’m not going to be a rebel but I’m not going to live in someone else’s image. I have to live with myself. It was like I had an auntie who kept trying to teach me how to play bridge. And I said, “I don’t like it.” And she said, “Well you have to learn.” And I said, “Why do I have to learn?” And she said, “Darling, what will the hostess do with you?” And I thought, well if a hostess can’t talk to me, who needs her.
Carl and Iris Apfel at their Manhattan apartment in a scene from “Iris.”
YS: We saw a lot of shopping in the film. Has there ever been something you wanted to buy, but didn’t, that you regret not purchased?
IA: Oh sure. You always think forever about the ones that got away, especially in a flea market. I don’t shop very much. I was worried that in the film, I would come away looking like an empty headed fashionista, which God knows I’m not. I think clothes are fun, but you have to first learn who you are and cultivate it. And a lot of people don’t want to do that. They want instant everything. And that doesn’t work.
YS: In the film we get to see you and the students from the University of Texas that you teach, what has that experience taught you?
IA: I get the fact that there’s a lot they don’t learn in school, and I think they all want to be given a road map, and that can’t happen. I tried to tell them that it’s very important in all of these design trades that they apprentice. Nobody wants to apprentice anymore, that’s why you buy a dress with lopsided seams.
YS: When you had your business and you were working in interior design, where was your favorite place to look for inspiration?
IA: I didn’t go anyplace for inspiration. Those inspiration stories make me want to throw up, “I took a walk on the moors…” No, you wake up in the morning and you look around. I always feel like I’m a sponge. There is always something that strikes me or inspires me.
YS: What did you want to be when you were young?
IA: Originally I thought I wanted to do editorial fashion. But then I got a job with Women’s Wear Daily and that changed. I made the magnificent sum of $15 a week. That was the going salary. Those were the days before electronics and Women’s Wear had a building on 5th Avenue and I think 13th Street. And I got about the lowliest job you could get— a copy girl. They don’t have that anymore. My job was to deliver papers back and forth, upstairs, downstairs, from one editor to another. I stayed there for a few months and being very bright I looked around and figured that most of the editors were women, and they were too old to get pregnant and too young to die so I thought I would never get a shot and I should move on to greener pastures, so I did.
YS: That scene in the film where you meet Kanye West has become one of the favorites.
IA: Everybody talks about it. What’s the big deal, Kanye West?
YS: He’s a big deal right now! People care. Have you met him again since?
IA: I don’t hang out with those kind of people. He was very pleasant. It was a brief encounter and that was it. I was surprised. People began to ask me questions, and I don’t watch that stuff, and I didn’t know what was going on.
YS: What has been your favorite experience about this sort of second life you have had as a fashion icon?
IA: It’s fun. There aren’t too many 93-year-old cover girls. It’s kind of a kick in the head. Everybody is very nice to me and they carry on and they are so full of compliments. They act like I discovered Penicillin or something like that.
YS: You give people freedom, in a way.
IA: People say I give them courage, and I’ve inspired them, and this and that. So it’s rewarding. I like to help people.
YS: What does your family think about all of that?
IA: I don’t have much family. My husband thinks its…just like I do. He enjoys it. He thinks it’s terrific. He loves it when I go on TV.
YS: You really do have a beautiful relationship; I think it’s my favorite part of the film. Something to aspire to.
IA: A number of people said to me that they thought the film was a double love story, one about my relationship with my husband, one about my relationship with my work.
YS: We would agree with that.
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