“Colour can raise the dead.” - Iris Apfel
For the month of March I planned to feature collage artworks, but with Iris Apfel’s passing at the age of 102 last week I’m making an exception. This woman was a flamboyant creative being who lived life with flair and in full colour. One might describe her personal eclectic style as a collage with haute couture, chunky costume jewellery and accessories combined in her “more is more” iconic way.
I had such a hard time picking colours from photos of Iris that I decided to break my own #coloricombo rules and use black and white as my colour prompts, with sunshine yellow added just because I love this colour so much and magic happens when you mix it with black. I’ve also done a colour mixing demo along with an owl artwork since this was Iris Apfel’s icon.
Iris Apfel (1921-2024) was an American interior designer, collector, stylist, society figure and self-proclaimed “geriatric starlet”. She had a long career in art and design but found international fame late in life,
Apfel was born in Queens, New York. Her father was Samuel Barrel, a business owner who sold glass and mirrors and her mother Sadye Barrel, who owned a fashion boutique. Iris studied art history at New York University and art at the University of Wisconsin before working for Women’s Wear Daily. She moved on to employment with an interior designer before opening her own design firm.
She married Carl Apfel in 1948 and together they setup Old World Weavers in 1952, a textile firm focused on reproducing antique fabrics that sourced products from traditional manufacturers across the world. Clients included designers, hotels and the White House where Iris Apfel was the interior designer for no less than nine American Presidents. These included the Trumans, the Kennedys and the Clintons and earned her the nickname the First Lady of Fabric. The Apfel's sold the company in 1992 and retired out of the spotlight, living between homes in New York and Palm Beach.
In 2005 the Metropolitan Museum in New York was looking for a last minute replacement after the cancellation of an exhibition and approached Apfel to mount an exhibition of her clothes.
"I always thought to show at the Met you had to be dead." said Apfel, who agreed. The exhibition was titled Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection although Apfel described it as less of a collection and more of a "raid on my closet".
The eclectic and avant-garde exhibition was an incredible success and Apfel instantly became an international celebrity and fashion icon, recognised for her unique ability to mix styles, textures and eras.
“My first big job in beauty and fashion came when I was at the tender age of ninety,” said Apfel, describing her collection for MAC cosmetics in 2011. A movie about her, simply titled Iris was released in 2014 and was nominated for an Emmy Award. This was followed by an autobiography, Accidental Icon published in 2018 shortly before her signing with the modelling agency IMG at age 97.
The world's "oldest living teenager" died on Friday 1 March, 2024 at age 102, leaving behind armies of devoted followers of her eclectic fashion sense, her musings and her humour. The world will be a less glamorous place without her.
You can read her obituaries in the Guardian here and in the New York Times here. The BBC has an article about how she became famous in her 90s here. Watch the trailer for the move Iris here and join the over three million followers of her Instagram account with the tagline more is more and less is a bore here.
Colour Combination
The colours for this weeks prompt are Black, White and Sunshine Yellow. Since I’m breaking rules this week you can add a variety of bright colours in your creations.
Coloricombo prompts are released once a week on a Monday, and this year I also link each month with a theme. March’s theme is "Collage". If you like you can use this as topic, or create in any way as you wish, using the colours in any medium and style.
Share your outcomes! Please tag #coloricombo and #estemacleod on social media. You're also welcome to post in the private Facebook group Creative Prompts
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Colour Mixing Demo
For paying subscribers I’ve created a colour mixing video that you can see below using black and Nickel Azo Yellow, a vibrant, translucent yellow. I followed this with an artwork inspired by Iris Apfel’s owl icon.
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