Apfel Quotes & Sayings

I never just went to look for clothes and style; I always find that wherever I go. — Iris Apfel

These are things I love, things I've worn. I get more compliments on accessories than anything else. I think they're kind of like herbs and spices. They give zest and zing to an outfit. — Iris Apfel

Nobody is original anymore. Nobody has any original style. — Iris Apfel

I still have the dress I wore on the first date with my husband, which was more than 66 years ago. I still have it, and it still fits. — Iris Apfel

I'm not a minimalist, as I'm sure you've noticed. — Iris Apfel

If you're over 60, arms are not pretty, so I think you should stay covered up. But wear what's appropriate for what you're doing, how you live, and what your lifestyle is. — Iris Apfel

It's better to be happy and comfortable than well dressed. — Iris Apfel

I don't look at Instagram. I don't have much to do with social media. — Iris Apfel

Just because you get to a certain number doesn't mean you have to roll up into a ball and wait for the grim reaper. We were put on this earth to do something! If you stop using your brain, at any age, it is going to stop working. It's like if you stop using your hand, it will atrophy. I think doing nothing is a curse. — Iris Apfel

I used to collect frames. I've been collecting accessories since I was 11-years-old, creeping around flea markets and sales and everything. Whenever I saw unusual eyeglass frames, I bought them. — Iris Apfel

When the fun goes out of getting dressed, you might as well be dead. — Iris Apfel

Given the choice, I would spend my money on accessories. — Iris Apfel

Throughout history, clothes represented who you were; they are a great vehicle for explaining who you are. During the Ching dynasty, for example, what you wore and how it was made reflected your status in society. People could literally read your clothes like a book, just by its color and how it was embroidered. — Iris Apfel

In my view, you can't go to the future if you haven't come from the past. — Iris Apfel

My mother worshipped at the altar of the accessory. — Iris Apfel

I think I still keep my sense of wonder, which I call childlike, not childish, childlike. I still have a vivid imagination, and I like to try a lot of new things. — Iris Apfel

I hate being asked how I met my husband and very personal questions like that. I don't like that. People are too nosey. Intelligent questions I like, but sometimes people ask such silly, dopey ones. — Iris Apfel

The White House is the people's house. When you do historical restoration, that must be what it is. — Iris Apfel

Creativity is down the tube. And people give a lot of lip service to individuality. I know they all appreciate it, but they all say they would like to do it, but they don't want to work at it, and it doesn't come out of the sky. — Iris Apfel

Fashion really is women's liberation in a lot of ways. Look at how many women in this country are depressed about how they look and how they think they have to look! It's really sad. And it's not about money. — Iris Apfel

I never buy what someone says is 'in' or a 'must-have.' I buy what makes me happy. — Iris Apfel

If you're lucky enough to get old, I think you should celebrate it. — Iris Apfel

I was always known in my industry, and I always enjoyed a modicum of popularity. — Iris Apfel

I find that if I get up and push myself, I get lost in what I'm doing, and I forget about everything else until I stop doing it. — Iris Apfel

You can change the look of an outfit so easily by changing the kind of jewellery you wear. If you have a basic outfit on - a black sweater and skirt or a simple black dress - you can go from the office to a cocktail party at night just by changing your jewellery. It helps if you change your shoes as well. — Iris Apfel

Jewelry is the most transformative thing you can wear. — Iris Apfel

I don't expect to find inspiration. It just sort of comes. Sometimes you step on a bug and you get inspired. — Iris Apfel

I've never seen anything like the way some young people behave. They go out on a date, and they're sitting opposite each other at a table, and they're not looking at each other, and they text each other as though they're deaf-mutes. It's insane. — Iris Apfel

I was never hurt by what anybody said about my clothes, because I dress to please myself. If somebody doesn't like what I'm wearing, it's their problem, not mine — Iris Apfel

To me there are lots more important things in the world than just having the right shoes! — Iris Apfel

When you don't dress like everybody else, you don't have to think like everybody else. — Iris Apfel

Colour can raise the dead. — Iris Apfel

I don't happen to approve of plastic surgery. I think God put plastic surgeons on this earth for good reasons - people get burned or people might have a nose like Pinocchio and that has to be fixed. But to just chop yourself up to look a few years younger? You could come out looking like a Picasso picture. — Iris Apfel

If you hair is done properly and you're wearing good shoes, you can get anyway with anything. — Iris Apfel

There was Pauline de Rothschild, who I thought was very fabulous, and Millicent Rogers, the Standard Oil heiress, very chic, very clever, very original. I admired both those women very much. And I had a great example with my mother, who was extremely chic. — Iris Apfel

Style is attitude, attitude, attitude! — Iris Apfel

Great personal style is an extreme curiosity about yourself. — Iris Apfel

Fashion has this youth mania. But 70-year-old ladies don't have 18-year-old bodies, and 18-year-olds don't have a 70-year-old's dollars. — Iris Apfel

My look is either very baroque or very Zen - everything in between makes me itch. — Iris Apfel

People would always say to me, "Why are you wearing such large frames?" And I would say, "The bigger to see you." — Iris Apfel

Shock can kill you. Shock is terrible. But what you've got to do is live in the present, which is what I have always done. — Iris Apfel

I don't get dressed up every day. I'm very busy. I get really annoyed when people talk about me as a 'fashionista.' I get dressed up when I have to go out. Most of the time, I'm running around in jeans. — Iris Apfel

You have to know yourself and know what you can carry. If you're not comfortable, no matter how well dressed you are, you're not going to look right. I'd rather be happy and feel comfy. — Iris Apfel

To find out who you are is like putting yourself on a psychiatric couch, but you have nobody to help you. Really it isn't easy. I was talking with my nephew this morning and he gave me one of the best quotes I've heard in years 'Personal style is curiosity about oneself.' — Iris Apfel

I live in the Dark Ages, the 17th century. Actually, I would have loved to be in Paris in the early 20th century when the Ballets Russes were there and Chanel was designing. — Iris Apfel

I don't care what people think ... I learned a long time ago ... I was 19 and had a very traumatic experience ... .and I learned that I have to go to bed with myself at night and that I have to please myself ... and as long as I don't go out of my way to offend anybody that I love, upset my mother or my husband ... I'll do my own thing. And if the public doesn't like it, it's their problem, not mine. — Iris Apfel

I say, dress to please yourself. Listen to your inner muse and take a chance. Wear something that says 'Here I am!' today. — Iris Apfel

You learn as you grow up, if you're intelligent - or even three-quarter witted - that there's no free lunch. You pay for things in various ways. Living, loving, everything else is a matter of the same principles: you learn to work with what you have. — Iris Apfel

I see myself as the world's oldest living teenager ... I try to get as much kick out of things as possible. — Iris Apfel

I have ideas that I think might be amusing, and I try them, and if they look right, I carry them out, and if they don't, I throw them out and try something else. I don't agonize about it. — Iris Apfel

I swear on everything holy I do not know what's on the Internet about me. — Iris Apfel

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. — Iris Apfel

I'm a color person, I've never been known to play it safe. Plus I like big bags. My eyeglasses are so big; they don't fit into smaller bags. — Iris Apfel

If you don't learn constantly, you don't grow, and you will wither. Too many people wither on the vine. Sure, it gets a little harder as you get older, but new experiences and new challenges keep it fresh. — Iris Apfel

Aging gracefully is about no heavy makeup, and not too much powder because it gets into the wrinkles, and, you know, to not get turtle eyelids and to not try to look young. — Iris Apfel

If you can't be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all the pretty girls I went to high school with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways. Don't you think? — Iris Apfel

The fashion industry has done itself in by neglecting the 60- to 80-year-old market. They have the time and the economic resources. They want to go shopping. — Iris Apfel

More is more and less is a bore. — Iris Apfel

I had to be my own person and live my own life if I wanted to be happy, and I just did it. — Iris Apfel

I think fashion is just part of my life and if it hadn't of been fashion then it would have been something else. — Iris Apfel

I had the good fortune to be able to take a course with Margaret Mead. I had a fabulous art course, where it was explained to me that nothing exists in a vacuum, that everything is a result of the period in which it's done - the economics, the sociology, the politics, all sewn together. That was a very important lesson. — Iris Apfel

I'm happy. I give thanks every morning that I can get up, that I still have my husband with me. I'm extremely grateful. After all, how many 93-year-old cover girls do you know? — Iris Apfel

I like to improvise. — Iris Apfel

You're not pretty, and you'll never be pretty. But, it doesn't matter. You have something much better. You have style. — Iris Apfel

I don't think dressing has anything to do with numbers. I know people of 30 who act like they're 97, and I have a few old-bag friends who are very hip. — Iris Apfel

You can be born with the talent to be an opera star, but you've got to work and practice it. — Iris Apfel

I'm making a lot of noise as I walk. — Iris Apfel

The world is not black and white; there are lots of shades of grey. There are good things and bad things in every era, and I think it's kind of very blindfolded to say one era was wonderful, as it was wonderful, but there were a lot of bad things as well. — Iris Apfel

I always feel that if you're gonna be uncomfortable and unhappy in something, just because you think it's in or it's chic, I would advise you to be happy rather than well-dressed. It's better to be happy. — Iris Apfel

You have to push yourself when you're older because it's very easy to fall into the trap. You start to fall apart - you just have to do your best to paste yourself together. I think doing things and being active is very important. When your mind is busy, you don't hurt so much. — Iris Apfel

I'm not going to be a rebel and offend anybody, but I'm not going to live in somebody else's image. — Iris Apfel

I've always loved to help people, young people in particular. — Iris Apfel

It's more important to be happy than well-dressed. — Iris Apfel

I think people should express themselves more and not just buy what's in. While it can be very beautiful, and it may suit you perfectly, I'm sure it doesn't suit everyone in the same way. I like people who express themselves and are more individualistic. — Iris Apfel

I can't tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It's just instinctive. — Iris Apfel

I don't dress to be stared at. I dress for myself. — Iris Apfel

The world is always full of promise. — Iris Apfel

I absolutely consider fashion a form of art. Of course, there is some fashion that is not art at all - it's utilitarian, made for the purpose of covering up. And there are a lot of people out there who put a lot of effort into looking awful. But there are also people putting the same amount of energy into making bad art. — Iris Apfel

My mother worshipped at the alter of accessories and I got the bug. She always said, if you have a good, little, simple black dress and you have different accessories, you can have 27 different outfits. — Iris Apfel

I think that if you have to work very hard at dressing up and it makes you nervous or uptight, then you won't look very well because you won't be comfortable. I think it's much better to be comfortable and happy than well dressed. — Iris Apfel

Understated jewellery is not for me. It's too itsy-bitsy. My husband is lucky, as I've never had a yen for real jewels. — Iris Apfel

I live in the 17th century. I don't have a computer. I don't look at the internet. I use a cellphone, and that's about my only connection to the modern world. — Iris Apfel

I wasn't interested at all in doing a documentary. I was not a public figure. — Iris Apfel

I'm not a collector of clothes. I've got clothes to wear. — Iris Apfel

I used to love to create outfits, and I still do - I just don't have the time. How can you wear one thing and never wear it again? Even my wedding dress - I had a dress made that I could wear again. I'm a child of the depression, so I'm very, very practical. — Iris Apfel

Humor is important in everything. Dress with a little humor and you can go a long way. — Iris Apfel

I think some people like me because I'm different. I don't think like everybody else. People are so tied up in the worst parts of technology these days. They live a life pressing buttons. They don't use their imaginations. — Iris Apfel

Coco Chanel once said that what makes a woman look old is trying desperately to look young. Why should one be ashamed to be 84? Why do you have to say that you're 52? Nobody's going to believe you anyway, so why be such a fool? It's nice that you got to be so old. It's a blessing. — Iris Apfel

Fashion and interior design are one and the same. — Iris Apfel

You can't just say, "I'm gonna have style." You have to work at it. It's intuitive; some people have it, and some people can work on it all day long, and it will never happen. — Iris Apfel

I think people try so hard to learn everything that they miss all the wonderful essentials. There is so much mystery in life that you should leave a mystery. — Iris Apfel

I just mix and put things together the way the spirit moves me. — Iris Apfel

You have to be interested. If you're not interested, you can't be interesting. — Iris Apfel

I don't spend my life getting dressed! I have to put clothes on during the day; I don't get dressed up at all when I'm working. I'll wear jeans, or something very simple. — Iris Apfel

Technologically, I live in the 17th century; I don't have a computer, I don't have any of that stuff. I don't look at the Internet, although I know people tell me I'm all over it. Somebody told me they Googled me, and they said I was mentioned two million times, some stupid thing ... but who cares? — Iris Apfel

In America, it has been proven that the bulk of spending money is in the hands of women between 60 and 80, so it's so stupid. The people who do have the time and money to shop are either retired or empty-nesters. — Iris Apfel

I just never want to completely grow up. — Iris Apfel

The fun of getting dressed is it's a creative experience. — Iris Apfel

You don't find out who you are unless you work at it. — Iris Apfel

I always tell people I'm very large in Uzbekistan. — Iris Apfel