Learn from a 102-year-old lady who may be cooler than you!

Iris Apfel ... the accidental icon

 

     My Fashion & Biz Hero is Iris Apfel…102 years old and still rocking it!!

I have always admired the career of Iris Apfel. I don’t know much about her personal life, but she has always encouraged women to be who they are. She helps women feel beautiful and the aging woman stand out in style.

A little bit about her career: She is an American businesswoman, interior designer, fashion icon and actress. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel led a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencies. In retirement, she drew acclaim for a 2005 show at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring her collection of costume jewelry and styled with clothes on mannequins as she would wear it. She has become a fashion icon, she signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97, and she was featured in a 2014 documentary called Iris by Albert Maysles.

I remember back when I was in fashion school and when I was teaching makeup technique/application, we were always told that when you got older, you needed to tone it down a bit. Softer colors, mute colors, basically, look your old age. I’ve defied that, and even hearing the voice of my mother in my head, “you need to act and dress your age”, I never bought in to it.  I’m not that.

Iris is quoted as saying, “Life is grey and dull. You may as well have a little fun when you dress and amuse people.” 

“You have to work at [developing style], find out who you are and what you can handle, whether you get upset if people look at you, whether you like a lot of stuff, whether you’re comfortable being a minimalist,” Apfel says. “Copying someone else’s style is not being stylish. Style implies attitude, mostly, and originality. And if you don’t have those two, well, you’re done.”

Another reason I like her, she is opposed to the “insane obsession with youth in this country” and is solidly—and hilariously—against plastic surgery. Unless “you have a nose like Pinocchio or, God forbid, you’re in an accident or fire or something,” she thinks the aesthetic risks are just not worth it. “You pay all this money, you go through all this pain, and you don’t know what you’re going to look like when you get finished. You could come out looking like a Picasso painting.”

“We used to go to parties in Palm Beach and my husband would look around and say, ‘Baby, you’re the only one here with your own face,’” Apfel says.

I love Iris and her wild flare for fashion, bright colors, her overachieving layering of beads and bobbles and her iconic large eyeglasses.

 

Here are the top 10 lessons from the lady who may be cooler than you!

1. Don’t obsess over your age

“You’re here. Embrace it. I say put your experience to work, to give something back to other people.” 

2. Pick a partner who celebrates your successes

3. When something excites you, go for it

“Most people would rather just go with the flow; it’s much easier. But it’s not very interesting.”

4. To stay young, you have to think young

“I hold the self-proclaimed record for being the World’s Oldest Living Teenager and I intend to keep it that way.”

5. Care about your own opinion above anyone else’s

“I don’t dress to be stared at; I dress for myself. When you don’t dress like everyone else, you don’t have to think like everyone else.” 

6. But don’t isolate yourself, either

“Here’s the critical part: I know I’m not an island, but rather part of the main… Fit in first and then step out. There is a difference between being perceived as original and being accepted, even loved for it, and being perceived as different and resented for it. You can have your cake and eat it, too.” 

7. Money doesn’t buy success

“If you’re happy, have found love, are surrounded by good people, doing what you like and giving back to others, that’s success. Selling your soul for a buck is not worth the real price you pay — not to me, anyways.”

8. Style is not about spending money

“Style is not about wearing expensive clothes. You can have all kinds of money and have no style at all.”

“I’m just as happy to wear bangles that cost me three dollars as I am to wear valuable pieces — and I like to mix high and low, putting things together to wear as the spirit moves me. When you try too hard to have style, you look uncomfortable, like you’re wearing a costume, like the clothes are entering the room before you do. If you’re uptight, you won’t be able to carry off even a seemingly perfect outfit. If that’s happening, I say abandon the whole thing. It’s better to be happy than well dressed.”

9. Start new endeavors with one small step

“You only fail if you do not try.”

“I never thought that I couldn’t do something because I was a woman. I wanted to start a fabric business, so I just figured out how to do it. Sometimes you just have to take action, even if it is a small step.”

10. Don’t pretend you are younger than you are

“There’s nothing wrong with wrinkles. When you’re older, trying to look years younger is foolish, and you’re not fooling anyone. When you’re seventy-five and you get a face-lift, nobody is going to think you are thirty.”

Gotta’ love Iris! She is my inspiration to age well and stand out in style!

Sources Wikipedia | CNBC

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Debra Lee

Author | Keynote Speaker | Biz Coach | Life Coach | Blogger