Christie’s auction showcases style of centenarian fashion muse Iris Apfel | Fashion
Iris Apfel, perhaps the world’s first centenarian style icon, died last year at the age of 102. Now her clothes, art and furniture are set to be sold at Christie’s later this month in an online auction titled Unapologetically Iris.
Anyone familiar with Apfel and her “more is more” style would know that it began with her trademark owl-like glasses. There are 18 pairs for sale here, with square, round and sparkly designs included.
Among more than 200 lots, her clothing style is present and correct too – with colour and print a theme running across items from the 60s to the present day, with labels such as Miu Miu, Saint Laurent, Dries Van Noten and Dior featured. There are also items from collaborations Apfel worked on including jackets from her H&M collection from 2022 and glasses from a collection with Italian brand Zenni.
Home items form another part of the collection. Along with a pre-1950s full silver service and various ornate chairs and screens, one curiosity is a lifesize wooden sculpture of an ostrich that doubled as a bar in Apfel’s Palm Beach home.
It comes with a Kermit the Frog soft toy that sits on its back. There are also personalised pieces – including a chair with a portrait of Apfel on the upholstery, and a lime-green cast-resin figure of her riding a scooter.
Some pieces will be on view at the auction house in Miami this month, and New York in February. Many of the pieces have estimates of under $1,000 (£800).
The playful nature of Apfel’s worldview was central to her position as a style icon to a younger generation.
Elizabeth Seigel, the head of private and iconic collections at Christie’s, said the levity in Apfel’s approach to aesthetics was what made her so inspirational. “She embraced the philosophy that ‘more is more’, but neither her fashion nor interiors ever seemed weighed down by the maximalist choices that drove her style and sensibility,” Seigel told Women’s Wear Daily.
A textile expert, Apfel worked with her husband Carl (who died in 2015 aged 100) on the interiors of the White House for nine presidents. Her profile in fashion began to grow from 2005, when The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art staged an exhibition of her jewellery and outfits. This was followed by an Albert Maysles documentary, Iris, in 2014, when she was 93.
A late fashion career began – she worked with brands including Kate Spade and Alexis Bittar, had a Barbie made in her image in 2018 and signed as a model to IMG in 2019. She called herself a “geriatric starlet”. By the time she died, Apfel had 3 million Instagram followers, people that Christie’s will no doubt target for this auction.
Perhaps the most inspirational aspect of Apfel was her refusal to “act her age” as can be seen in this collection. In 2015, in an interview with the Observer, she was asked why her apartments were full of “stuffed animals, children’s toys and year-round Christmas decorations?” “We just like to have fun,” she replied.
“And I think there’s a difference between being childish and keeping a quality that’s childlike. I’m very grown-up in a lot of ways, but I think that’s so sad – it’s good to maintain a sense of wonder.”