“I don’t do minimal,” Apfel says of her design approach.
My love of Ms. Iris Apfel is no secret. I think she's incredible in her ability to express & maintain her person style. As well as the fact that she co-founded Old World Weavers with her husband. They make the MOST beautiful historically relevant fabrics. Stark purchased Old World Weavers in 1992 & also carries many other incredible fabrics & paints & carpets/rugs. FINALLY Architect Digest is featuring Ms. Apfel's incredible Manhattan apartment.
Her interior style mirrors her personal style. Bold, over the top, bohemian & completely her. Personally, it's a little bit much for me. But that's why I love it so much. After seeing home after home in my daily career it's refreshing to see a home completely out of the ordinary from what I see in Houston. I also LOVE when a person understands their style so completely that it envelopes every part of their lives. That's a hard concept & one that I think takes a lifetime to hone.
"Taste you can learn, but style is like charisma. You know it when you see it.” - Iris Apfel
Reading about other creative types journey are the most inspiring articles. I devour them. This quote is directly from Architectural Digest because I just couldn't get the point across as well as they already have. "A stint working for a well-connected woman who tarted up apartments to make them marketable during the World War II housing doldrums followed. “She couldn’t decorate her way out of a shoebox,” says Apfel, but she had a talent for scavenging from junkyards and flea markets the kinds of furniture and fabrics that were hard to come by in wartime. The thrill of the hunt was contagious, and the conviction that Apfel could outdo her employer was inspiring. “I realized I had found my calling,” she declares. “Interior design was for me.”"
“I guess people thought if I could decorate myself I could decorate a room or two.” -Iris Apfel
Iris Apfel became a household name in 2005 when the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute featured an exhibit displaying many of her unique accessories and fashions. Rara Avis (Latin for rare bird) highlights her exuberant style and ability to combine both high & low fashions (Dior with items from a flea market) into the same stunning outfit. The exhibition has traveled the country and changed the way people view person style. A book of the exhibition has been done, it's so beautiful I have been dieing to get my hands on it. I've seen peaks into her home before, but it's incredble to see her home as it relates to her personal style. Ms. Apfel is currently a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Human Ecology, designing her own line of costume jewelry and photographer Bruce Weber is working on a documentary about her.
“People write to me: ‘You’ve changed my life!’, I’m giving them permission to be individual again.” -Iris Apfel
This is exactly how I want to grow into my career, with new exciting opportunities all the way into my 80's. Who needs to sit around being retired when you LOVE what you do. You can find the Architectural Digest article here, also each image above links to the article.
xx,
Jamie
