Some of the best people from which to learn the secrets to great style are old women. No matter your age, there is so much to learn from them. These are the people to watch, to ask them questions, pay attention to what they say, and find out what are they doing and why they’re doing it. In the quest we all seek of how to develop our individual style, today’s post is dedicated to Iris Apfel, a glamourous woman in her 90’s. Iris is a woman who when you see her, it only takes seconds to notice how free she is in expressing her individual style.
Freedom is exactly what I feel when I see her pictures and videos. Her style is a reflection of who she is and how she feels about things. Iris knows herself and is in-touch with herself so well that only takes her a matter of minutes to get ready, and what we get to see is the creation of outfits like none other. Her way of thinking is so refreshing and inspirational, when she says:
-“I think individual expression is very important, it’s liberating and it makes you feel good…”
-“I don’t dress to be stared at. I dress for myself.”
-“Real style, I think, is original. It doesn’t follows trends and knows who he/she is, and has a particular kind of look and goes on to define it, or redefine it.”
Even her way of responding questions from those who ask her why she “does the thing she does” is fascinating. An example of this is her answer to people who ask about her iconic eyeglasses, stating: “Well, when I started to wear glasses I thought, well if I have to wear glasses, I might as well wear GLASSES, and so I went to some flea markets and found the biggest ones; and then people would say, ‘why do you wear such a large frames?’, and I would say, ‘they’re bigger to see you’. And that took care of that. People think I do it for a reason and I don’t, they just happen.”
Even though she is well known in the fashion industry, there are still many young women that wouldn’t believe that at the age of 90 she was the face of the MAC Cosmetics 2011 winter campaign. These days, we women face a lot of pressure to follow trends, but seeing another kind of beauty such as Iris, which is quite different than what we see in the media, is empowering.
From all the very empowering messages Iris is sharing with all of us women, I couldn’t leave without including her message to teenagers about individual style, during her interview with Dani Austin:
-“They [teenagers] need to learn who they are and stay true to who they are. I think it is painful for some of the younger ones to live in… more than it was for me… to live in somebody else’s image. I could never do that. I spent some [time] being prodded in that direction… and I never was so miserable in my life. I can’t live that way. I am not going to go out of my way to be a rebel because I’m not one, but I’m just going to live my own way. You just have to be strong about that because if you are weak, you’re just going to be miserable. Remember, Rome was not built in a day, and all these things take time and effort, and if you want everything instantly, you are not going to get anything.”
Style is something that is developed from within, and to have style we must know ourselves. One of the best people to teach us about the secrets to great style are old women. Thank you for reading!
Pictures, @Iris.apfel Instagram.