Iris Apfel Wants to See More Originality in Fashion

“I think personal style is mostly attitude,” Iris Apfel tells POPSUGAR at The Colony Palm Hotel in West Palm Beach, FL. At 100 years old, the renowned interior designer – dressed in a turquoise pantsuit with layered pearl necklaces, colourful bangles, and her signature glasses – is an expert on personal style. Over the course of her 72-year career, she has worked as a copywriter for Women’s Wear Daily, decorated the White House for nine US presidents, and curated museum exhibitions around the world. Her latest venture is a limited edition of clothing, accessories, and shoes for H&M launching on April 14 in the US.

Apfel is one of those rare style icons whose influence transcends generations. She has 2.2 million followers on Instagram, and 34K on TikTok, most of whom will undoubtedly flock to buy the new Iris Apfel x H&M collection. The business mogul has plenty of advice for that new generation of fashion tastemakers. To find their personal style, she says, they simply “have to get to know who they are.”

Apfel has always championed self-knowledge as a portal to style discovery. She’s been quoted saying that “Great style comes from great curiosity about yourself” and that “Your personality is the ultimate accessory.” Apfel’s own unique sense of style has been the subject of a museum exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a popular documentary called “Iris.” Her knack for styling bright colours, maximalist prints, and eye-catching accessories has cemented her place as a fashion legend – a status she’s parlayed into ventures in textile fabrication and interior design.

She brings that singular sense of style into her new collection for H&M, blending her maximalist aesthetic with H&M’s mastery of modern silhouettes. A pair of crystal-trimmed sunglasses captures her passion for personality-driven accessories, while an embroidered coat dress nods to her knowledge of textiles. There’s also an orange minidress with printed inserts, a textured kelly-green feather jacket, a pair of mustard-yellow jacquard trousers, a two-piece set trimmed with purple tassels, and a green maxi dress with a cascading hem.

When asked about the inspiration behind the collection, Apfel silently throws her hands up and starts pulling on invisible threads – a gesture nodding to the many influences at play. She has more to say about the price point, which ranges from $30 to $150. “I’m a great one for high fashion at an intelligent price. Why shouldn’t people have good clothes and interesting-looking, offbeat things at a decent price? So, that’s my mission and that’s what I do in all my designing, for everything.”

Ahead of the April 14 collection launch on H&M US, Apfel opens up about her creative process, her thoughts on accessible luxury, and the journey to define one’s personal style. Scroll through for our full interview.

H&M

On Designing the H&M Collection

POPSUGAR: Tell me about your creative process when designing this collection.

Iris Apfel: It’s hard work. They [the H&M team] let me know what they like. I put together some ideas. We did all this by Zoom and transatlantic, so it was very exciting. And then once you decide, you start to work on the details. And one thing follows another. If it’s a piece of clothing, it’s one thing. If it’s a room, it’s something else. There has to be some sort of framework. You have to have some architecture, or it falls apart – so many things do because there’s no underpinning.

H&M

On Setting an Accessible Price Point

PS: What I like about this collection is that it’s at an accessible price point. How do you feel about the democratisation of fashion?

IA: I’m a great one for high fashion at an intelligent price. Sometimes I go into a store and I look at this and I go, “Oh my God! You’d need two sugar daddies to buy that one.” *laughs*

I think clothes are important, but it’s not the end of the world. It sounds crazy spending $20,000 on a dress. It’s a little bit dippy. Things can be made at an intelligent price if people would work at it. People somehow think if something is not expensive, it’s gotta be shoddy, but that’s not true. That’s why I’m so thrilled. Nobody has done it as well as H&M.

Why shouldn’t people have good clothes and interesting-looking, offbeat things at a decent price? If you can afford it – or maybe you can afford it, but you just don’t want to swindle that kind of money – why shouldn’t all these wonderful things be available? So that’s my mission, and that’s what I do in all my designing, for everything.

H&M / CHRIS CARTER

On the State of the Fashion Industry

PS: How do you feel about fashion right now?

IA: I’m very sad. Everybody is afraid. Everybody copies everybody else. There’s no originality, there’s no creativity. Everything looks the same. You go down an important street, and in every window, everything looks the same except priced differently. It’s pitiful.

H&M

On Personal Style

PS: How do you define personal style?

IA: I think personal style is mostly attitude: how you look at things, how you perceive things, how you want the world to perceive you. But everything is a matter of perception. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

H&M

On Finding Your Personal Style

PA: So how do people find their personal style?

IA: They have to get to know who they are, see how comfortable they are with working at it. Some people get so nervous and so upset about their clothes. They get neurotic about it, and I always say, “If it’s gonna make you upset, it’s better to be healthy than well-dressed.”