Iris Apfel, the geriatric starlet

By Kassia St Clair

What do Iris Apfel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Isabella Blow, Diana Vreeland and Jenna Lyons all have in common? These grande dames of fashion spent their early years bemoaning their appearance. The connection isn’t surprising. It’s natural to throw distraction in the face of a perceived deficit: who will notice that your eyes are too close together, or your nose too long, or your legs too thick if you are dressed like a goddess? There is no doubt that Iris, the subject of a new documentary by the late Albert Maysles, dresses spectacularly. Her careers as a textile designer and interior decorator have given her a fine eye and she and her singular wardrobe became such darlings of the fashion world that they had their own exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2005. You might assume—as I did—that a film about a woman who cares deeply about how she looks, and who dresses to be noticed, would err on the side of vapidity. But, like me, you would be wrong.

Maysles and his brother made a habit of using charismatic oddballs as the subjects of the documentaries they co-directed: the sad-sack Bible peddlers in “Salesman” (1969), the two rich and reclusive Edith Beales in “Grey Gardens” (1975), and the Rolling Stones in “Gimme Shelter” (1970). It becomes clear within the opening moments of “Iris” that this is a kinder, and perhaps less exploitative, variation on that theme. The bond that the nonagenarian Iris shares with her husband Carl is the kind that keeps Match.com in business—hands are held, kisses shared, tales of journeys taken together recounted, and each knows the other’s preferred brand of yoghurt. Their apartments are stuffed, floor to ceiling, with artworks and detritus collected over a lifetime together. We get to know the Iris underneath the praying-mantis glasses and the flamboyant necklaces that drip from her neck like candle wax. She’s a woman everyone would want as their wise relation and never takes herself too seriously. “It is better to be happy”, she tells the photographer Bruce Weber, “than well dressed.”