An end to the extraordinary journey of an extraordinary woman, Iris Apfel, who rose to prominence late in her life.
102-year-old Iris Apfel passed away at her home in Palm Beach, Florida, this Friday. The announcement came through an Instagram post that did not reveal the cause of the death.
Her agent, Sale, called her an extraordinary woman, recalling working with the fashion icon who was always up for work.
Unlike most famous figures, Apfel's journey to fame was quite different and unexpected for both her and the world. But as fate would have it, Apfel’s career, which had many interesting and major shifts, started gaining traction only in her later years.
Apfel, who has been an influencer, model, and brand face for many popular and famous fashion brands in her later years, started her career as a copywriter for a fashion brand, Women’s Wear Daily.
Apfel, born on Aug. 29, 1921, in Astoria, Queens, and raised in New York, started her textile business with her husband Carl Apfel in 1950. Their textile company, Old World Weavers, shot up, and they ended up getting nine White House restoration projects for the presidents.
She owned two homes, one in Palm Beach and the other on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which she shared with her late husband, Carl Apfel, who died in 2015 at 100 years old.
As soon as the camera found Apfel, her unique and bold sense of style set her apart, making her remarkable and thus popular among viewers. Her style that she rocked in the later years of her life is what was unusual and stood out to brands and the masses, and that made her an inspiration.
Her increasing popularity every year brought her more ad campaigns and brand deals that made her the face of leading fashion brands.
Her recent ad campaigns included Kate Spade, MAC Cosmetics, Alexis Bittar, HSN, and Le Bon Marché.
Apfel’s unique style was often complimented with an outfit that was a mix of high-fashion and bold costume jewelry. Her big, round, black-rimmed glasses that topped her nose became her signature style.
Her bright red lipstick and her short white hair gave her a unique touch to her every look.
She often wore accessories like chunky beads, bangles, and more to add to her style.
When it came to work, Apfel was never tired or overwhelmed; she was always making appearances on screen in the ad campaigns of big brands like H&M.
Apfel, who ventured a lot in her career as she aged, despised the idea of getting retired and considered it a fate worse than fate.
At 90, she was working as a teacher at the University of Texas at Austin; at 94, her documentary directed by Albert Maysles got released; and by 97, she became a professional fashion model, signing up deals with top agency IMG.
She became the first living person to have a show, Rara Avis, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to exhibit her clothing and jewelry as a non-fashion designer.
Apfel was the subject of the documentary film Iris, released in 2015, and her biography, titled Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon, came out in 2018.
Talking about Apfel, her agent Lori Sale said,
She saw the world through a unique lens—one adorned with giant, distinctive spectacles that sat atop her nose. Through those lenses, she saw the world as a kaleidoscope of color, a canvas of patterns and prints. Her artistic eye transformed the mundane into the extraordinary, and her ability to blend the unconventional with the elegant was nothing short of magical.
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