19 SUNDAY MAIL • October 21, 2012
Lifestyle
Dazed & Confused’s latest cover girl Iris Apfel, 91, proves that on planet fashion age is just a number. Karen Dacre salutes her style - and those spherical specs STYLE icon. Now there’s an irritating little phrase. Once saved for only the very best - Grace Kelly, Steve McQueen, Audrey Hepburn, to name a few the term is no longer used to describe the attributes of a unique, earth shatteringly definitive purveyor of fashion but rather those of a blow-dried celebrity in possession of more designer dresses than sense. At 91 years old, Iris Apfel is an exception. Instantly recognisable by her signature spherical specs, Apfel is a living legend whose popularity in fashion circles increases every time she toasts another birthday. As do her credentials as a style icon. Among her list of recent achievements is a collaboration with make-up brand Mac and a collection with Jimmy Choo. A former muse of Ralph Lauren, Apfel stars alongside Anna Wintour in the documentary Bill Cunningham New York. Next year she is set to be the subject of her own documentary by filmmaker Albert Maysles. And as the cover “girl” of this month’s Dazed and Confused, Apfel is resplendent in the magazine’s Art Special. Affectionately known as the oldest teenager in the world, Apfel’s unforgettable outfit choices have won her a place in the hearts of fashion editors and style bloggers around the world while her dry New York wit makes her a must on every guest list. But who on earth is she? Born in Queens, New York, in 1921, Apfel was the only child of Samuel Barron and his Russian wife Sadye. A bright young thing with a keen eye, she spent her early days surveying the shelves of her mother’s clothing business before beginning a shortlived career in fashion journalism at trade
The big Apfel
World’s oldest teenager: Iris Apfel models this season’s Comme des Garcons collection in the latest issue of Dazed & Confused (left). Above: dressed for cocktails earlier this year
Womenswear magazine W Daily. two years after In 1950, tw Carl Apfel, she marrying Ca launched Old Ol World Weavers, a textile business that would go on to become one of the most iconic in American history. But it wasn’t un until 2005 when the Metropolitan MuMetr seum chose cho 83-year-old Apfel - and an her wardrobe - tto star in a major ex exhibition that the world would w learn her name. Enchanted by the Ench wardrobe of one of war New Ne York’s bestdressed citid zens, the musez um showcased the most exquisite of Apfel’s finery in a show titled Rara Avis: The R Irreverent Iris Irr Apfel. The exhibiApf tion marked a first m for the Met, which had never before prone filed a living woman li who was not a designer. It was visited by more than tha 150,000 visitors. As a result, Apfel became the hot topic of t choice for every fashion bible on e earth. Here, in a culture weighed down weig with the fetishism of youth, was a woman who wh was growing old disgracefully with disgr all the confidence of a 25-year-old. The fashion world couldn’t get enough. “I think it’s hysterical,” says Apfel in her Dazed and Confused interview. “My husband and I laugh about it all the time, because I’m not doing anything different than 70 years ago and all of a sudden I’m so hot and cool and whatever the hell the kids say I am. It’s fun but it hasn’t gone to my head.” Apfel’s reluctance to take herself or the industry that’s so hell-bent on placing her on a pedestal too seriously is key to her appeal. While today’s society is saturated with celebrities who consider being photographed in the hottest designer dress essential to their life force, Apfel takes a decidedly blasé approach. “Fashion is not my trade and it’s not my life. I don’t live to get dressed. I think getting dressed is wonderful but there’s a whole big world outside of the closet.” Now there’s something we can all drink to.
Hepburn to Harry Potter: Hollywood costumes in UK show By Stephen Eisenhammer FROM Charlie Chaplin to Marilyn Monroe, more than 130 silver screen costumes covering a century of cinema are on display at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in an exhibition that celebrates the role of the designer in film-making. Hollywood Costume, which opened yesterday and runs until January 27, offers a chance to see many of the most famous movie get-ups on public display for the first time. “This is the first exhibition on
this scope and scale”, Keith Lodwick, one of the exhibition’s curators said. “We really wanted to raise the profile of the costume designer,” he said, explaining that their job “is not all about the glamorous clothing”. Instead the costume “has to fit exactly with the concept of what the director would like to do”. The exhibition presents some of the most memorable syntheses of costume and character, including Audrey Hepburn’s black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s designed by Hubert De Givenchy and Charlie Chaplin’s cane and bowler hat
which he designed himself. “Some costumes live beyond the film. Someone may not have seen the Charlie Chaplin film, but they would probably recognise his silhouette. That’s costume design”, Lodwick said. The exhibition is a movie buff’s dream. One journalist stood frozen to the spot in front of Indiana Jones’ muddy leather outfit from The Raiders of the Lost Ark costume, staring at the action hero’s whip in mid-crack. “Don’t mind me, I’m having a moment”, she said. The result of five years of sourcing and negotiating, the exhi-
bition consists of three rooms which trace the creative process involved in costume design. The third room, named simply “the finale”, is a spectacle of Hollywood heroes and femme fatales, from Batman to Harry Potter through Marilyn Monroe’s blowing dress and Uma Thurman’s yellow Kill Bill tracksuit. “It’s just meant to blow your mind”, Deborah Landis, the guest curator and designer of Indiana Jone’s costume, told reporters.
A costume worn by US actor Tobey Maguire in the 2002 movie Spider-Man