In the fashion years it would now be 16. That is a fitting coincidence, after all, we are talking about an industry that still knows how to ignore everything non-young.

A world of clothes designed mostly for sixteen year olds, often advertised by not much older models.

A jewelry and clothing collection worthy of the world's cultural heritage

Jennifer Wiebking

Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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In any case, fashion discovered Iris Apfel 16 years ago.

A lady with large glasses, bright red lips and a private collection of jewelry and clothing that looks as if the world's cultural heritage is gathered in it.

It was the year 2005, and Iris Apfel, then 83, was already a lot of what she is famous for today: well dressed and well connected in New York.

Then Harold Koda, the then head of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum (MET), gave his girlfriend with the special style the big stage, a fashion exhibition under the name "Rara Avis" - rare bird.

The subtitle: A selection from the Iris-Barrel-Apple-Collection.

Simple: Iris Apfel, easy to remember - and to market

The first part of her surname, her maiden name, was quickly deleted, "Iris Apfel" was easier to remember and market. The figure for it as if made for fashion, which during this time

opened up a new world

on the Internet apart from the hairdos of the magazine editors-in-chief and

must-haves of

the season. It was more colorful, funnier, more remote. Iris Apfel became a style icon. Or, according to the title of her autobiography "Accidental Style Icon", published a few years ago - a style icon by chance.

It was always a look that only a fundamentally curious person could have cultivated for himself.

Iris Barrel, born in Queens in 1921, founded the textile company Old World Weavers with her husband Carl in 1950, which specialized in fine fabrics.

They supplied the White House for nine terms.

"Individuality seems like a dirty word these days"

The view of the street is more of a surprise to her today, she said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in 2019: “There is no longer any creativity.

Everyone copies the other, everyone looks the same. ”Individuality?

"Seems like a dirty word today," said Iris Apfel.

"If you're walking around in the same black uniform as everyone else, you're telling the world: I'm like everyone else."

Apple is the opposite of that, and according to the eternal Vogue boss Anna Wintour, no one among New York fashion women is more recognizable today. Iris Apfel will be one hundred years old on this Sunday.