“Now when I walk down Fifth Avenue in the summertime I just want to throw up. It seems that the fatter and uglier people are, the fewer clothes they wear. The shorts and flip-flops and tight jeans on butts that go from here to Poughkeepsie.” She shudders. “I always say they should put people in jail for wearing clothes like that. Especially stretch jeans over size 10–they should be outlawed. Ten years ago people were starting to look like slobs in New York, now it’s an epidemic.”
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| June Ambrose and Iris Apfel Front Row at Sachika Fall 2011 New York Fashion Week "Awakening of a Swan" Swan Ballerina Kimberly Giannelli , Hair & Make up By Neonfix |
In an interview with The Telegraph, style icon Iris Apfel lets loose on everyone from New Yorkers to celebrities to her late husband, proving that when you are 90 years old, you can say whatever you damn well please (and that everyone will still love you). Here are the best quotes from the article, hilarious snippets just as eccentric as Apfel’s infamous wardrobe.
On personal style (prompted by Lindsay Lohan asking Apfel to be her stlyist):
“I can’t tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It’s just instinctive. You can’t try to be somebody you’re not; that’s not style. If someone says, ‘Buy this, you’ll be stylish,’ you won’t be stylish because you won’t be you. You have to learn who you are first and that’s painful… I don’t try to intellectualize about it because it tightens you up. I think you have to be loose as a goose.”
On personal style (prompted by Lindsay Lohan asking Apfel to be her stlyist):
“I can’t tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It’s just instinctive. You can’t try to be somebody you’re not; that’s not style. If someone says, ‘Buy this, you’ll be stylish,’ you won’t be stylish because you won’t be you. You have to learn who you are first and that’s painful… I don’t try to intellectualize about it because it tightens you up. I think you have to be loose as a goose.”
On being an overweight teen and losing weight by smoking cigarettes:
“I was very unhappy so I ate and ate and ate and no clothes would fit me. My mother used to tear her hair out when she took me shopping… the salesgirl would always say to me, ‘Why don’t you be slim like your mother?’…I used to smoke like a fiend. I smoked four packs a day. I never do anything half-assed, shall we say, but I stopped because I felt I was getting to be an addict. I’ve got very good willpower.”
“I was very unhappy so I ate and ate and ate and no clothes would fit me. My mother used to tear her hair out when she took me shopping… the salesgirl would always say to me, ‘Why don’t you be slim like your mother?’…I used to smoke like a fiend. I smoked four packs a day. I never do anything half-assed, shall we say, but I stopped because I felt I was getting to be an addict. I’ve got very good willpower.”
On celebrities:
“Most of the young people today look dreadful. And celebrities look even worse. They don’t know what to do with themselves. At the Golden Globes and Oscars they all look alike–it seems like they’re all wearing the same nightgown and this year nobody had any jewelry at all. Only Helen Mirren was wearing a beautiful necklace, but even she got it wrong because the necklace just ruined the dress. I think the designer must have wanted to kill himself when he saw her.”
“Most of the young people today look dreadful. And celebrities look even worse. They don’t know what to do with themselves. At the Golden Globes and Oscars they all look alike–it seems like they’re all wearing the same nightgown and this year nobody had any jewelry at all. Only Helen Mirren was wearing a beautiful necklace, but even she got it wrong because the necklace just ruined the dress. I think the designer must have wanted to kill himself when he saw her.”
On meeting her husband:
“He told my friend that he thought I was very attractive if only I would go and have my nose fixed. So I said, ‘You can tell him to go fly a kite.’”
“He told my friend that he thought I was very attractive if only I would go and have my nose fixed. So I said, ‘You can tell him to go fly a kite.’”
On her iconic glasses:
“When I needed to wear glasses, I decided I’d wear glasses. All the better to see you with.”
“When I needed to wear glasses, I decided I’d wear glasses. All the better to see you with.”
On people who have bad style:
“It’s a free country – if you want to look like a freak, that’s your problem.”
“It’s a free country – if you want to look like a freak, that’s your problem.”
