Iris Apfel Dies: Fashion Icon Captured In Documentary Film Was 102

The colorful Iris Apfel, whose embrace of vibrant fashion was captured in a 2014 documentary film, died Friday at 102 at her home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Her agent, Lori Sale, issued a statement. “Iris Apfel was extraordinary. Working alongside her was the honor of a lifetime. I will miss her daily calls, always greeted with the familiar question: ‘What have you got for me today?’ Testament to her insatiable desire to work. She was a visionary in every sense of the word.

“She saw the world through a unique lens – one adorned with giant, distinctive spectacles that sat atop her nose. Through those lenses, she saw the world as a kaleidoscope of color, a canvas of patterns and prints. Her artistic eye transformed the mundane into the extraordinary and her ability to blend the unconventional with the elegant was nothing short of magical.”

Apfel worked for Women’s Wear Daily and became an interior designer, then ran the textile company Old World Weavers with her husband, Carl, who died in 2015.

In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted an exhibition of her wardrobe called “Rara Avis: Selections From the Iris Apfel Collection.” It was the museum’s first exhibition dedicated to just one person’s clothing collection.

That sparked a wave of interest in her, spawning the 2007 coffee-table book, Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel. added to her fame. She signed a modeling contract with IMG at the age of 97.

Albert Maysles’ documentary, Iris, opened the New York Film Festival in 2014, then played theatrically in 2015.

No memorial plans have been announced.