American fashion icon and textile expert Iris Apfel died on Friday at the age of 102.
The death was confirmed by Apfel sales agent Laurie Sale, who called the interior designer “extraordinary.” The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Apfel was born on August 29, 1921, in New York City and ran the textile company Old World Weavers with her husband, Carl. Specializing in restoration work, she participated in White House projects under six US presidents. Apfel’s famous clients included Estée Lauder and Greta Garbo.
The North American woman was known for her irreverent way of dressing, mixing, for example, couture clothing with items found in street markets. Wearing large round glasses with black frames, bright red lipstick and short white hair, she stood out at every fashion show she attended, writes the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
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“I’m not beautiful and I’ll never be beautiful, but that doesn’t matter (…) I have something much better, I have style,” Apfel said, the news agency reported.
Apfel was a late bloomer in social media fame, amassing nearly three million followers on Instagram. On TikTok, where she talked about fashion and promoted collaborations, the American attracted 215 thousand subscribers.
“Working with her was the honor of my life. I will miss the daily phone calls that began with the familiar question: ‘What do you have for me today?'” Sale said in a statement.
Apfel’s fame skyrocketed in 2005 when the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York organized the exhibition “Rara Avis”, which is Latin for “rare bird”. The museum described the designer’s style as “both witty and vividly distinctive.”
The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, was one of several museum spaces in the country to host a traveling version of the exhibition.
Apfel later decided to donate hundreds of items to Peabody, including couture dresses, to help the space create what he called “an incredible fashion collection.”