H&M’s latest collaboration is a vibrant and glamorous project created in partnership with one of America’s most noteworthy, high-energy and unique style icons – the incomparable Iris Apfel. The Iris Apfel x H&M collection celebrates the 100th birthday of the beloved tastemaker.

Iris Apfel is living proof that not all Virgo women are subdued, buttoned-up earth mothers devoid of eccentric personalities. Apfel turned 100 on August 29, 2021 and she remains an energetic centenarian about down. I would so love to see the Queen of England and Iris Apfel sharing tea, celebrating being two great dames of a certain age. For a moment of levity, check out Apfel’s Instagram with 2.1 million followers.

The Iris Apfel x H&M collection arrives online and in stores in the UK on March 31 before dropping in the US and Canada on April 14.

“H&M was drawn to work with Iris because of her famously eclectic taste and her influence within the fashion community. She epitomises personal style – a style that is both beautifully flamboyant and eclectic as well as totally ageless. She shows what fashion is all about: it’s a means of expressing yourself, who you are or want to be and a way to have fun. She’s a true inspiration!”

Ann-Sofie Johansson, Creative Advisor, H&M Womenswear.

Iris Apfel joined the IMG model and talent roster in 2019, at age 97. And she gave an interview to Vanity Fair on the set of her photoshoot for these images. Vanity Fair reminds us that Apfel was on the cover of Dazed Magazine. We’ll track that down for Tuesday, along with all the other Iris Apfel articles on AOC.

“I just try to be myself,” Iris told Vanity Fair’s Kenzie Bryant over video in November, while she was on the set of the shoot. “Wear what I like, style it the way I like it, and I hope that everybody else will like it.”

Asked about the secret to her longevity, Apfel, who is the only child of Jewish parents and was born in Astoria, Queens, thanked divine powers, eating properly, not smoking anymore and no longer drinking either. “You know, don’t live a crazy life, but I think being involved and working very hard, at least for me, is a very, very important factor. I just love to work. It stimulates me.”

Apfel is convinced that we are leaving a decade-long period of comparative design minimalism and ready for some fashion joy. Kenzie Bryant writes:

On the cusp of another spring, after a period of big change, it feels like the moment is ripe for self-expression. The personal, rather than the anonymous same-same of minimalism, has returned to the runways as in the streets, and Apfel has stayed ready.

Apfel concludes:

“I can’t see how less could ever possibly be more, but I mean, if you go maximal, you gotta know what you’re doing, or you end up looking like a Christmas tree,” Apfel said. “You don’t know when to stop. And you gotta know just how much you can carry. It’s all, it’s all a matter of practice and common sense and just working at it and trying to be an individual.”
Yes, effortlessness takes work, the introspective and intentional kind. “You have to learn who you are, and experiment if you don’t know, and try and not look like everybody else,” she said. “So I think there’s something there that various people can indulge.”