Iris Apfel

Background

Iris Apfel is one of the oldest fashion models in the world. Apfel is intelligent and has experience in styling that spans many decades. Apfel was born on August 29, 1921, and her zodiac sign is Virgo. She was born in Queens, a borough of New York. Her parents have Jewish origins. She was her parent’s only child, and they raised her on their farm. Her passion for fashion started when she was a child, and she purchased her first fashion piece in her early teens.

Later, she studied art history at New York University and attended the University of Wisconsin art school. After her studies, she worked as a copywriter at Women’s Wear Daily; a magazine referred to by many as the bible of fashion. She made her first foray into interior design by working with Elinor Johnson, a respected interior designer. Apfel got a job as a reporter at Grossinger’s, and her keen eye for style was reflected in her styling. Soon, guests at the resort hired her to help style their living spaces.

After Apfel got married, she and her husband Carl partnered with a textile mill. Their company, Old World Weavers, would give fabric samples to the mill, and the mills would create it at scale. They traveled to countries with interior decoration history and collected unique fabric pieces. Apfel’s fashion sense only became widely known in 2005, when she was asked to help save a failing show. She presented her jewelry collection along with her clothing. With that, the public saw Apfel in her full glory, and that started her career in mainstream fashion. In 2012, as a visiting professor, she helped the University of Texas develop a program teaching students how to succeed in the fashion business.