Wednesday, May 11, 2011

All Things Apfel!

Nearly every morning after breakfast I check out the Fashion section of New York Magazine and to my surprise I found this snippet on Iris Apfel taken from this months Architectural Digest..... If you don't already know of Iris Apfel you must! She is a fabulous inspiration in both the style and interior design world! Truely a "rare bird"! Check out these inspirational pics from her New York apartment and a few of my favorite quotes and snippets from the article! 




Many of the pillows featured in Mrs. Apfel's Manhattan home are exact hand loomed reproductions of 17th, 18th , 19th and early 20th century fabrics...one of the results from having founded textile company "Old World Weavers" 






Louis XVI style chairs....hmmmm....ironically similar to the one I repurposed for our "CHAIR-ITY"....I had no idea it was such a popular thing when I bought the roughed up chair...Its a great boost to me to know I my instincts are on the right track:) 






I love this picture for 2 reasons....First because it reminds of my Great-Grandmother, Nanna Sylvester, who looks shockingly similar to Iris Apfel, not only cause of the glasses but the because of the huge grin of happiness on her face.  And secondly, because I am envious of all the racks of vintage clothes she owns!

Check out this video I found of and interview she did back in 2009....You will fall in love with the way she articulates herself and how it gives you an internal voice in reading anything she’s quoted on.







Finally I will leave you with this snippet of history on how she found her calling into interior design.  As for me it is my admiration for people like her who have contributed to my urge to decorate the world forward!


She didn’t start out to be an interior designer. What she hankered for in the early 1940s, as a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin’s art school, was a career in fashion. But after landing her first job as a $15-a-week copy girl at Women’s Wear Daily, she figured out that advancement there was blocked because the editors she hoped to someday replace were, as she puts it, “either too old to get pregnant or too young to die.” A stint working for a well-connected woman who tarted up apartments to make them marketable during the World War II housing doldrums followed. “She couldn’t decorate her way out of a shoebox,” says Apfel, but she had a talent for scavenging from junkyards and flea markets the kinds of furniture and fabrics that were hard to come by in wartime. The thrill of the hunt was contagious, and the conviction that Apfel could outdo her employer was inspiring. “I realized I had found my calling,” she declares. “Interior design was for me.”

No comments:

Post a Comment