Iris Apfel Quotes

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Iris Apfel

Profession : Businesswoman

Birth : August 29, 1921

My look is either very baroque or very Zen - everything in between makes me itch.

Iris Apfel

I never had to look for confidence because I just wore what I wanted to wear. I would never wear anything to offend my husband or my mother, but outside of that, I always figured, I hope I'm not a rebel, and I hope everybody liked it. And if they didn't like it, it really was not going to disturb me because it was their problem, not mine.

Iris Apfel

If you don't learn constantly, you don't grow, and you will wither. Too many people wither on the vine. Sure, it gets a little harder as you get older, but new experiences and new challenges keep it fresh.

Iris Apfel

You don't find out who you are unless you work at it.

Iris Apfel

I mix everything up. A museum curator once said to me that there is a great jazz component to the way I do things because good jazz is improvisation and draws elements from all different cultures. And that's the way I do everything - the way I dress and decorate.

Iris Apfel

You can't try to be somebody you're not; that's not style. If someone says, 'Buy this - you'll be stylish,' you won't be stylish because you won't be you. You have to learn who you are first, and that's painful.

Iris Apfel

There's different shopping in Paris than there is at a bazaar in Istanbul, but they're all wonderful.

Iris Apfel

I don't do very much for beauty. I use very simple things on my skin. I haven't got time. I would always get facials and then come home laden with product, and pay a lot of money and never use it. Anyway, one day a dermatologist told me to use Cetaphil to clean my face and as a moisturizer, and that's what I do.

Iris Apfel

Self-exploration is very painful, but unless you do that, you will never know who you are and who you want to be.

Iris Apfel

Creativity is down the tube. And people give a lot of lip service to individuality. I know they all appreciate it, but they all say they would like to do it, but they don't want to work at it, and it doesn't come out of the sky.

Iris Apfel

I don't happen to approve of plastic surgery. I think God put plastic surgeons on this earth for good reasons - people get burned or people might have a nose like Pinocchio and that has to be fixed. But to just chop yourself up to look a few years younger? You could come out looking like a Picasso picture.

Iris Apfel

Coco Chanel once said that what makes a woman look old is trying desperately to look young. Why should one be ashamed to be 84? Why do you have to say that you're 52? Nobody's going to believe you anyway, so why be such a fool? It's nice that you got to be so old. It's a blessing.

Iris Apfel

Clothes are not frippery. Properly done, they can be an art form.

Iris Apfel

I swear on everything holy I do not know what's on the Internet about me.

Iris Apfel

I'm from New York. My grandparents were settlers of Long Island City. When they came here, there was no bridge, and they had to hire a boat across the river. They had a farm, and my grandmother had to go once a week to Manhattan to buy provisions - very primitive.

Iris Apfel

I am not a fashionista, and I don't dress up. Usually if I'm at home, where I am now, I'm wearing a robe.

Iris Apfel

My mother was a big influence; she was exceedingly chic, completely dressed in a completely different manner than I did. I was a child of the Depression, so she taught me all about accessories, and I always tell everybody she worships at the altar of the accessory.

Iris Apfel

Understated jewellery is not for me. It's too itsy-bitsy. My husband is lucky, as I've never had a yen for real jewels.

Iris Apfel

I have ideas that I think might be amusing, and I try them, and if they look right, I carry them out, and if they don't, I throw them out and try something else. I don't agonize about it.

Iris Apfel

You can be born with the talent to be an opera star, but you've got to work and practice it.

Iris Apfel