She’s 94, but that hasn’t done anything to stop her from owning who she is and her sense of style. That in itself is a source of inspiration – no matter your age, there’s always a way to be inspiration through your fashion.
Who is Iris Apfel?
The New Yorker is an entrepreneur, an interior designer, and a fashion icon. And she’s still going! Apfel consults and lectures about style and other fashion topics. In 2013, she was listed as one of the fifty “Best-Dressed over 50s” by The Guardian.
Her most distinct accessory has to be her round framed glasses – there’s no missing her!
We found this great interview she did with intothegloss.com and here are some excerpts we just had to share.
What she says about getting older…
“Getting older ain’t for sissies, I’ll tell you. It’s very funny. I have a dear friend whose mother’s gone, but she was very funny. When I’d say ‘Yuda, how do you feel?’ she’d say, ‘Oh—when I get up in the morning, everything I have two of, one hurts’. You have to push yourself when you’re older, because it’s very easy to fall into the trap. You start to fall apart—you just have to do your best to paste yourself together. I think doing things and being active is very important. When your mind is busy, you don’t hurt so much. Thank God I love to do things. I feel blessed that I have all these opportunities at this stage in my life. I was always very busy with all kinds of stuff, and I’m very used to it—but at ninety, I have all these new careers—a makeup collection with MAC, working on glasses for Eye-Bobs, I’m on Home Shopping and on YOOX, and I do a big program with the fashion school at the University of Texas at Austin—they made me a professor.”
Inspired yet? Wait. There’s more.
What she says about ageing gracefully…
“Aging gracefully is about no heavy makeup, and not too much powder because it gets into the wrinkles, and you know, to not get turtle eyelids, and to not try to look young. You don’t have to look like an old fuddy-duddy, but I believe it was Chanel who said, ‘Nothing makes a woman look so old as trying desperately hard to look young’. I think you can be attractive at any age. I think trying to look like a spring chicken when you’re not makes you look ridiculous. I’m very opposed to plastic surgery. I think if—God forbid—you’re in an accident, or if you were cursed with a nose like Pinocchio, you’d have to go and get it fixed. But just to get nipped and tucked, I think it’s very painful, very expensive, and having been in hospitals as much as I have, subjecting yourself to surgery when you don’t need it is not a smart thing to do.”
On diet and eating right…
“I’m very active and I don’t sit still very much. I like to eat well, I don’t like rich food, and I don’t eat junk food. I used to like to drink, not heavily of course—now I just drink wine at dinner. I like good, wholesome, well-prepared food. I don’t like glopped-up, I don’t eat cakes. Sometimes they say I don’t eat enough, but it’s better to eat less than more. I think more people get sick from over-eating all the wrong things. The body is like a machine—if you don’t put the right kind of fluids into it, it’s not going to work so well, or it’s going to get clogged up.”
– Cover Image: intothegloss.com
