DE S IGN CENTRE
difficult to source the textiles they wanted in sufficient quantities, the couple spotted a business opportunity. They would form a company specialising in weaving exact reproductions of antique fabrics. Old World Weavers was launched in 1950 and became an – almost – overnight sensation. Their first client was the iconic decorator Dorothy Draper and a dizzying list of A-list celebrities followed, including Estée Lauder, Greta Garbo and, thanks to a long-term contract with The White House, nine American presidents stretching from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton. The Apfels sold Old World Weavers to US brand
Stark in 1992. (It is now part of The House of Scalamandré, available at the Design Centre through the Turnell & Gigon showroom.) Iris was 71. She was known and highly respected in the interior design world and was still involved in Old World Weavers – Stark’s current creative director Ashley Stark credits her textile knowledge to the Apfels who would spend evenings quizzing her about the finer details of jacquards and brocades – but comfortable retirement seemed like the next stage. And then came that exhibition. Harold Koda,
curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, needed to fill a sudden gap in the exhibition schedule. He had heard that Iris Apfel had one of the best collections of costume jewellery in America, so he
called her to ask if she wanted to exhibit it. She did, and what began as a small accessory show grew into an extravagant celebration of Apfel’s witty, vivaciously idiosyncratic style that took the world by storm. More than 150,000 people went to see it in New York and it generated an avalanche of press attention. In a world that fetichises youth, this feting of an octogenarian was a surprise. And what is more surprising still is that,
“THE INTERIOR DESIGNER TURNED FASHION ICON MAY HAVE
‘RETIRED’ NEARLY THREE DECADES AGO, BUT WOW, HAS SHE BEEN FILLING HER DAYS”
17 years on, Apfel’s star is still shining. She signed a modelling contract with leading agency IMG when she was 97 and her 100th birthday last summer saw her awarded one of the design world’s highest accolades, the Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award. Apfel didn’t set out to be any kind of icon but, as she
said in an interview in 2015, she does get joy from that fact that while she’s “having a good time expressing
myself,” she is also “giving people the courage to express themselves too.” And not just in the way they dress. Apfel might be best known today for her wardrobe, but she is an interior designer at heart and textiles are her first love. Her approach to dressing rooms mirrors her approach to dressing herself, a process Koda describes as “sophisticated collaging”. You can see it in her own Wunderkammer-like apartments in Palm Beach and New York, where French opaline glass sits beside Native American cradle boards and costume jewellery is heaped beneath oil paintings of dogs (there are so many of these that friends call her New York hallway the “Victorian kennel”). You can see it too in the new collection she has launched with Fabricut, currently on show at the newly expanded Christian Lee showroom on the third floor of the Design Centre. Maximal Couture is a beautiful riot of interior prints,
weaves, embroideries and decorative, jewellery-like trims, all inspired by textiles and fashion pieces from Apfel’s archive. ‘Tulip Suzani’, for example, is based on kaftans she collected during her travels, while the whimsical ‘Fantasy Bug’ comes from her love of brooches. Embodying Apfel’s unrivalled talent for layering patterns and colour, this collection is considered, elegant and also fabulously, joyously, extravagant – much like Apfel herself, a century old and having the time of her life.
ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Trimmings from Apfel’s new Maximal Couture collection for US brand Fabricut, styled here to include a reference to her signature glasses and bright lipstick; ‘Tiger’, a silk
velvet originally released by Old World Weavers in the 1960s, is still available via Scalamandré at Turnell & Gigon. OPPOSITE: The new collection for Fabricut (available at Christian Lee) draws on pieces from Apfel’s own archive, and celebrates her love of layering pattern and colour, with fabrics that include ‘Tulip Suzani’ (on curtains), ‘Bazaar’ (on upper tablecloth) and ‘Resurgence’ (on lower tablecloth)
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