The Black Nouveau

The Costume Institute honored her in their fall 2005 exhibit “Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection”

Now I have seen her in person (in front of the Met of course) and she is something short of stunning.

Quote: “I’m not a fashionista and that is not my life.  I love beautiful clothes, and I appreciate them, but…I’ve been in business all my life, I built a business, I’m involved in a lot of charities and all kinds of stuff…and….you know, just being a clotheshorse is not my idea of heaven.” 

Iris Apfel- tenacious & vivacious, my kinda lady.

Love the fact that Apfel admits her style is a mix of high and low fashion. i.e.  Dior Haute Couture with flea market finds.

Chester Higgins, New York Times describes her as “an oddball hybrid: a bird of paradise with a magpie eye for sorting and gathering. A mistress of the disjunctive effect, she likes to combine, as she did for the show, a fluffy couture evening coat made of red and green rooster feathers with red suede trousers slashed to the knees.”

Did we mention she is one of the founders of Old World Weavers, textile company, the other her husband Carl of course.

This entry was posted on June 9, 2009 at 11:19 AM and is filed under Uncategorized with tags Art Shows, Fashion, Icons, Iris Apfel, Met Museum, Style, textile, The Black Nouveau. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.