Fashion Icon New Yorker Iris Apfel Signs With IMG, Her First 'Proper Agent' At Age 97

CNN Style wasn’t kidding, when Stephy Chung introduced an in-depth profile of a legendary New York style icon with the words ”Even at 96, Iris Apfel shows little interest in slowing down.”

Known for her bold and eccentric mix of haute couture with flea market finds, Apfel’s notoriety got a major boost in 2005, when her personal clothing collection went on display at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Renamed the Anna Wintour Costume Center in May 2014, the renovated Costume Instutute Space includes the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery to orient visitors to The Costume Institute's exhibitions. That, dear friends, is known as making a name for yourself.

A year later, Chung’s description of Iris Apfel was one the money, with the 97-year-old signing with IMG, one of the biggest and most prestigious model and talent agencies in the fashion world. The company will represent Apfel in modeling contracts, as well as appearances and endorsements.

"I’m very excited. I never had a proper agent," Apfel told WWD. "I’m a do-it-yourself girl. I never expected my life would take this turn so I never prepared for it. It all just happened so suddenly, and I thought at my tender age, I’m not going to set up offices and get involved with all kinds of things. I thought it was a flash in the pan, and it’s not going to last. Somehow, people found me. People would just call. Tommy Hilfiger said that was no way to do it, and he put us together. I’m very excited and very grateful."

Apfel hopes that her success will inspire other older women to do the same. "I don’t think a number should make any difference and make you stop working," she said. "I think retirement is a fate worse than death. I love to work, and love my work. I feel sorry for people who don’t like what they do. I do it now to the exclusion of everything else. I meet interesting, creative people, my juices flow and I really have a fine time."

In May 2013, the New York Times T Style sat down with Iris Apfel.

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Iris Apfel Makes a Vivid Impression In Luis Monteiro Images For Vogue Portugal August 2018

Iris Apfel Makes a Vivid Impression In Luis Monteiro Images For Vogue Portugal August 2018

New York native Iris Apfel found the blazing limelight late in life -- not her 50s or 60s or even 70s. Apfel was in her 80s before she began popping up everywhere, and her distinctive, male bird of paradise style (females are notably less colorful in the animal world) caught the attention of New York's inner fashion circle.

Iris Apfel became the first living person not a fashion designer to have an exhibition dedicated to her at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2015, Iris Apfel and her beloved, now-departed from earth husband of almost 70 years Carl, got the documentary treatment in the Albert Maysles film 'Iris'. Many believe that iris and Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele got together in another life. 

Eye: Fashion Icon Iris Apfel Covers Elle India November 2017, By Bikramjit Bose

Eye: Fashion Icon Iris Apfel Covers Elle India November 2017, By Bikramjit Bose In 'Friday With Iris'

Fashion icon, interior designer and American businesswoman Iris Apfel, rolling at age 96, fronts the November 2017 issue of Elle India. Malini Banerji styles Iris in images by Bikramjit Bose for 'Friday With Iris'. / Makeup by Eric Vosburg

Iris Apfel is known for being blunt. For example, when asked by Fashionista about dressing for your age, she responded: "I think that's stupid," Apfel says about the phrase. "I think [designers are] all entirely too youth-oriented. I think a lot of designers create very expensive clothes for women [in their] 60s and 70s — people who wear them — and they create them for 16- and 18-year-old bodies. The kids can't afford to buy them and the women look like a horse's ass if they put it on. So it's all out of whack."

Listen up, designers! Apfel sat down with T Magazine's Deborah Needleman in 2013.

Iris Apfel Hates Loss Of Individuality In Fashion & Rejects Importance of 'Pretty'

Iris Apfel’s documentary ‘Iris’ has opened in select theaters a month and a half after the death of director Albert Maysles of ‘Grey Gardens’ fame.

Vanity Fair writes that without the fashion icon Apfel, now 93, we would not be seeing the rise of the senior ‘supermodel’ (another abuse of the word): Joan Didion for Céline, Charlotte Rampling for Nars, Jessica Lange for Marc Jacobs Beauty, Joni Mitchell for Yves Saint Laurent. Apfel herself is the new face of Kate Spade.

Iris Apfel’s roots go back to the young woman from Queens, New York, with big dreams for a career in the fashion industry. In a truth serum moment that would result in modern parents arriving for a confrontation about crushing their child’s ego, Frieda Loehmann, founder of the famed department store told Apfel:

You’re not pretty and you’ll never be pretty, but it doesn’t matter. You have something much better. You have style.

Paying tribute, Vogue.com says that Apfel is our leading ambassador for the ‘fashion of chance: the idea that good taste isn’t aspirational but realized on the fly, that more can be done with well-layered costume jewelry and a one-of-a-kind poncho than with all the season’s must-have fare.’

Iris envisions getting dressed as akin to playing jazz — a ‘sartorial safari’ and wild fun that celebrates individuality. In this fashion icon’s playbook, style isn’t about pleasing other people. “It’s better to be happy than well-dressed.” Not one to mince words, Apfel laments fashion’s uniformity. “I think it’s very sad… . People are being robbed of their imaginations—and everything else—with this button-pushing culture we have.”

Apfel shares that she had the opportunity to take a course with Margaret Mead. Also, she had a fabulous art course, “where it was explained to me that nothing exists in a vacuum, that everything is a result of the period in which it’s done—the economics, the sociology, the politics, all sewn together. That was a very important lesson.”

Iris’ relationship with her husband, 100, obviously adores her. After six decades of marriage, they still hold hands in the back of the cab. “I figured he was cool, he was cuddly, and he cooked Chinese, so I couldn’t do any better,” Apfel says lovingly. For his part, Carl says “It’s not a dull marriage, I can tell you that.”

The duo were business partners, founding Old World Weavers which gave Apfel the credentials to do interior design work at the White House for presidents from Truman to Clinton.

The documentary ‘Iris’ is an excellent argument for fashion as art, writes Indie Wire. The review continues:

‘Iris’ will be most interesting to fans of fashion, but it’s not a documentary that excludes those unfamiliar with its subject matter. If appearances from Dries Van Noten, Alexis Bittar, and Tavi Gevinson mean little to the uninitiated, there’s always the gushing meeting with Kanye West to drive home Iris’ cultural impact. J.Crew’s Jenna Lyons shows a few times, popping up at the CFDA Fashion Awards and Carl’s 100th birthday party. Iris’ style may seem over the top for daily wear, but it’s not hard to see her influence on brands and people like Lyons, with a mixture of high and low, as well as a heap of statement jewelry.

As for the ‘not pretty’ part of her history, Iris Apfel is cool about it, telling director Maysles:

I never felt pretty, I don’t feel pretty now; I’m not a pretty person. I don’t like pretty, so I don’t feel badly. And I think it worked out well, because … when you’re somebody like myself, in order to get around and be attractive, you have to develop something, you have to learn something, and have to do something, so you become a bit more interesting. And when you get older, you get by on that. Anyway, I don’t happen to like pretty. Most of the world is not with me, but I don’t care.