Iris Apfel’s talent to amaze

This is a book like no other. Part artwork and part compendium of a lifetime’s experience in design, it is meant to be looked at as much as read. Nor is it titled Colourful for nothing: entire pages are in vivid hues of vermilion, lime green, canary yellow, emerald and toffee. On them are displayed illustrations, patterns of fabric and family photographs, interspersed with chunks of prose or aphorisms. In short, it is an expression of its author’s philosophy, threaded through rather disjointedly with the story of her life.

Iris Apfel is the only woman I can think of – with the possible exceptions of Diana Vreeland and Helena Rubinstein – who turned extreme plainness into an aspect of personal style. She was instantly recognisable with her huge round spectacles, bright red lipstick, waterfall of necklaces and her ensembles, that were, to say the least, original. In President Nixon’s time, since she thought the White House underheated, she attended a meeting with him wearing the thick tunic of a priest, accessorised with thigh-high boots and an armful of chunky bangles.