For legendary fashion icon Iris Apfel – 100: her charm and style – age is not the limit!

“Young people have to learn to be themselves, not to live imitating all those characters observed on social networks that you will not even call personalities. Many people these days look neither particularly harmonious nor particularly beautiful. It looks like they just got out of bed or jumped out of a pile of rags. The sporty style can seem just comical. It has its own purpose and is therefore suitable for leisure or the gym.

According to the fashion icon, you should feel responsible for those around you and try to look your best. “It is much more pleasant to look at something beautiful than to look at something messy,” Apfel said.

“By the way, the ones who really look beautiful walk around like they’re in uniform. What extremes are everyone alike with such a large clothing selection? It’s hard to give universal advice, but I think if everyone showed the highest self-esteem and tried their best to be interesting, the world would definitely improve. Therefore, focus your mind and think of other people, in addition to looking in the mirror at least once in a while!

In my head, the style is gene-encoded, but it still needs to work. Do not sit with your hands together. If you are rewarded with a great voice, but do not develop it at all, you will not become an opera soloist. If you screw up, if you have potential, you have to exploit it. It all started for me when I was 11 years old. Then there were many good fashion magazines that we could study and learn from this. Thank goodness Harper’s Bazaar at least survived. It is good to know that someone is older and wiser than me!

Forming a sense of style is a path of trial and error. You need to understand who you are, what is right for you, and what is best to avoid. For example, the Chanel suit is a cool and fashionable item, but certainly not for me. I prefer a wide jacket from Balenciaga. I like provocative patterns, but I don’t like rich embellishments. I like it when beautiful, drapey fabrics match my chosen accessories. If it’s obvious sometimes, I go crazy for accessories, ”says the fashion icon.

According to Iris Apfel, the jewels are the ones that transform the image the most. With different jewelry, the same black dress can look completely different.

“Even my mom told me that if the possibilities are limited by the budget, it is necessary to buy several high-quality garments and combine the jewels to give the image exclusivity. The jewelry you choose automatically becomes individual and integral to your style. This advice dates back to the time of the Great Depression, but is still relevant today. Even at the flea market, you can find bracelets that will go very well with dresses from a haute couture collection. Someone might say that wearing something fancy is definitely not appropriate for picking up worthless spam, but I really like doing it.

I realize that today some women don’t want to admit their age. That’s stupid. We need to be grateful for each additional year. I don’t want to be afraid of looking like an old witch, but whether or not Coco Chanel has said that no one ages a woman as a desperate effort to look young. There are no rules to follow when deciding what to wear at a young age or at a respectable age. You just have to make the right decision, although even this word is used less and less ”, says I. Apfel.

Fashion expert Marija Palaikytė also spoke about the fact that a person’s age is just numbers and it shouldn’t affect the way we have to look and dress at one stage or another.

“The stigma of the time, in my opinion, is still one of the most striking expressions of our self-poster, so we should get rid of toxic concepts.

We live in an age of consciousness and we should be prepared by now to believe that our age does not directly define the limits of our possibilities. So why is it still not possible to turn this idea into reality? Why do we keep counting anniversaries that are not new milestones, but increasingly compelling rules of ‘how (should we) behave’ or ‘how should we look’? Will it ever be too late to live, to enjoy the different stages and simply: may it be too late for fashion?

There are many unavoidable numbers in our lives that we struggle with for whatever reason. No matter how we look at it: it is too little for us, it is too much … years, kilograms, centimeters around our hips or measuring our height, etc …

Yes, it is necessary to take care of your body, but accepting the uniqueness of that body, the dynamics of changes over time and getting rid of stereotypes is vital ”, says fashion trends analyst Marija Palaikytė.