Scandi high street brand H&M calls her “the incomparable Iris Apfel.” And indeed it’s a good word for this flamboyant Jewish 100-year-old.
It’s not just her age that makes this New York Jewish fashion icon so unique. She exudes style from every pore of her slender, five foot, six inch frame — and clearly, has done since her earliest days as Iris Barrel in the (then) sleepy suburb of Astoria, Queens.
Astoria is where her Russian-born grandfather Abraham Asofsky was an honorary officer of the synagogue and where Iris first honed that elevated style aesthetic. Aged eight or so, she shouted at her mother about hair ribbons that didn’t perfectly match her dress and later developed a chic if, somewhat masculine, aesthetic, wearing a “man’s tailored suit” brown brogues and “an interesting hat” for a vibe that prefigured Annie Hall by many decades.
Iris had style stamped on her genetic code via both parents. Her mother Sadye (née Asofsky) owned a successful fashion boutique, while her father, Samuel Barrel ran the family glass and mirror business which may have given Iris an early glimpse (forgive the pun) into the interior-design world she would so successfully inhabit later as co-founder, with her husband Carl, of Old World Weavers. That business — carrying out restoration and refurbishment for prestige clients including nine White House administrations from Truman to Clinton — was sold in 1992.
Before consolidating her creative skills in Old World Weavers, Iris studied art history at New York University and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin. But to understand her arc to style icon, it is necessary to recognise Iris’s innate passion for fashion.
She began collecting jewellery as “a young girl,” recalling in her memoir, how she “rode the subway” to scour Greenwich Village junk shops for pieces that were the foundation of her now legendary trove. Later, criss-crossing the globe with Carl for their interiors business, she began collecting fabulous clothing, notably in post-war Paris, where she bought couture samples, ultimately amassing a vast collection that included Dior, Balenciaga and Nina Ricci.
As Accidental Icon, the title of her 2018 autobiography, indicates, her career as fashion icon began serendipitously. The Costume Institute at New York’s world-renowned Metropolitan Museum held a 2005 exhibition, Rara Avis: The Irreverent Iris Apfel that showcased her spectacular wardrobe and style, and suddenly the fashion world couldn’t get enough of her.
There followed not just a travelling exhibition and a visiting professorship (at the University of Texas), but front-row appearances at Collections; magazine covers (including Harpers Bazaar, Elle and Dazed & Confused); advertising campaigns (for, among others, MAC, Kate Spade and Citroen); a documentary (Iris, 2015); a biography (Rare Bird of Fashion: the irreverent Iris Apfel) and Accidental Icon, her autobiography; a modelling contract with IMG; jewellery lines (for Yoox and a Home Shopping channel); and in 2018, as a Mattel “She-roe,” an “Iris” Barbie Doll.
And now, in spring 2022, there is a collaboration with Sweden’s global fashion giant, whose previous collaborators have included the most elevated fashion gods, from Versace and Karl Lagerfeld to Jimmy Choo and Balmain.
IRIS 1
1. Iris the icon 2. Fringed blazer, £69.99 3. Wide-leg trousers, £69.99 4. Chunky necklace, £59.99 5. Loafers, £119.99 6. Bracelet with charms, £69.99
The collection — “inspired,” says H&M, by “Iris’s more-is-more aesthetic” and “unique flair”— launches in selected H&M stores worldwide and online today (and in the US two weeks later). The collection comprises dresses, skirts, blazers, blouses, trousers and, of course, accessories. And, with its bold textures andsilhouettes and bolder colours, it perfectly fits H&M’s description, “playfully over-the-top.”
Clear nods to Apfel’s exquisite couture collection are visible in detail seldom seen on the high street, such as embroidered pea pods with pearls for peas on a jacquard blazer (£120) and loafers embellished with oversized, jewelled frogs or insects (£120). Other stand-out pieces include an impossibly glamorous lilac tulle jacket (£229) and a tiered maxi skirt and blouse, both wittily crafted from an iris-flower print.
IRIS fashion 2
7. Iris-print blouse £39.99 8. Iris-print tiered maxi skirt, £119.99 9. Earrings, £34.99 10. Frilled tulle jacket, £229 (All Iris Apfel at H&M)
H&M also mentions an “eclectic” aesthetic meaning, I think, something for everyone — though perhaps not the faint-hearted.
Naturally, there’s jewellery: a cornucopia of bold, statement necklaces, earrings, brooches, bracelets and bangles, often influenced by nature but always inspired by fabulous pieces Iris has hoarded across her fashion-fabulous lifetime.
So, if you feel it’s time to indulge your inner diva, and love bright, bold over-the-top designs, you can be more Iris at a High Street near you.
