Iris Apfel: Colorful

Fashion icon Iris Apfel shares her philosophy for living, unique perspective on design, and the key moments that shaped her life, along with 300 photographs from her personal collection in a beautifully produced legacy book, featuring a bespoke ribbon marker, edges sprayed with a vibrant pink ink, and a debossed, high-gloss cover.

With more than 300 personal photos and adorned with beautiful, unseen fabric patterns from Iris’s Old World Weaver’s collection, Iris Apfel: Colorful has her incredible energy radiating from every page. Here she shares her creative work, life stories, adventures, and unwavering belief in the essential power of color and creativity on a life well lived. In the summer of 2023, as Iris Apfel welcomed her 102nd birthday, she put pen to paper to write this very special project, which Iris called her legacy book. “This is not a book of secrets—I have no secrets. Sorry to disappoint if that’s what you’re looking for. I have some good stories, though. And a few ideas. This book is about living, creating, and color. Because creativity and color matter. I don’t want you to dress like me or think like me—that’s not the idea of this book. I want you to find the colors, confidence, and creative inspiration that reflect you. My life has been filled with love, wonder, and a very deep, incurable curiosity. This book is my treasure trove of inspiration, influences, and ideas: My source. Be brave. Find your source. What makes you happy? —Much love, Iris x”

Author Biography

Iris Apfel (August 29, 1921-March 1, 2024), the renowned American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion icon, was also a prolific collector of and authority on antique textiles. In 1950, she, with her husband, Carl, founded Old World Weavers, an international textile manufacturing company specializing in reproducing antique fabrics. She was a consultant to the White House for nine presidential administrations and produced fabric that still hangs in the Gold Room today. In 2005, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art staged Rara Avis, a blockbuster exhibit of her clothing and accessories, making her the first living person who was not a fashion designer to be so honored. In 2014, she was the subject of director Albert Maysles’s award-winning film Iris. An associate professor at the University of Texas, she was the recipient of numerous awards, including a special award from the Women Together Foundation at the United Nations for her lifelong dedication and support of artisans around the world. In 2018, at the age of ninety-six, she was the oldest person to be turned into a Barbie doll. In 2023, at the age of 102, Iris wrote Iris Apfel: Colorful, to be published by Abrams in August 2024, in celebration of what would have been her 103rd birthday.