Iris Apfel remembered by Duro Olowu

29 August 1921 – 1 March 2024
The fashion designer on inspirational moments spent with his tirelessly creative friend, a visionary stylist and textiles maker

Read the Observer’s obituaries of 2024 in full

It’s impossible to imagine a person’s absence when it seems, like Iris Apfel, that they were always here. Iris was a woman who understood the transformative and inspiring power of clothing, for herself and for those she encountered. If you knew her well, or observed her closely during quieter moments, the process behind her style was awe-inspiring yet deeply human. Maximalism wasn’t really part of Iris’s raison d’être. Her creative process was much more poetic and conceptual than simply piling on jewellery and bold garments for effect. Like her work as an interior decorator and textile designer, it was about connecting with people and showing them how to find joy in difference and curiosity. Iris loved young people, and they loved her in return. She didn’t preach; instead, she showed them how to creatively express themselves through the way they dressed, without losing their individuality. Much of her unpublicised work, particularly in the last 15 years of her life, involved mentoring and arranging internships for design students in high schools and colleges.

It occurred to me early on in our friendship, which began in 2005, that Iris was a woman who never said no to life. As a teenager, she would sneak off to Manhattan from her birthplace in Queens, New York. Her forays into Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other parts of the city became an education for her in the appreciation of beauty, individuality and savoir-faire in the applied arts. It was also a great way for her to develop her eye, as well as her renowned bargaining skills, as demonstrated in Albert Maysles’s 2014 documentary Iris.

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