Styling Like Iris Apfel.

By Karen and Erica

As many of you know, the Iris Apfel collection was recently auctioned by Christie’s. Just looking at her clothes–and everything else, of which there was plenty–made us think about style.

Apfel surely had style. Everything she wore–and much that she possessed–articulated a world view about how she should present herself. Color was key–bright color. Grace was essential. Confidence was the message. 

We could not literally emulate Apfel. We are very different people–from her, and from each other. But we too learned decades ago that appearance sends a message, and we too learned that the message had to be confident. 

When we started out as lawyers, we did not have too much confidence. We were often the only women in the room, and we understood that most of the men in the room did not expect us to stick around. So we tended to pass under the radar–to dress like little men so no-one would notice we were actually there. We wore gray and blue skirt suits, sometimes with floppy ties, clunky brown or blue shoes, carried blocky briefcases. One of us even wore neckties.

We worked hard, and we proved ourselves. The men began to realize we were not going anywhere, and we could keep up. Indeed, we could be useful.  We were different, of course. Sometimes we had little wine and cheese parties in the office to celebrate a win. Everyone liked that sort of thing. We began to be accepted–a little.  

And then we had an epiphany: we could come out as women. We had to wear skirt suits, of course, but they could be pink. Or orange. We could wear high heeled shoes. We could carry purple tote bags instead of brown clunkers.  And stuff them with necessities like shoes and lipstick.

Luckily for us, right around then, Diane von Furstenberg came out with her wrap dress. Supremely feminine, yet businesslike. No chance a little man could wear that dress. Our clothes began to say: we’re here. And we will not be ignored. And we learned to use our style to jhelp us get noticed. Color in a sea of gray. 

Since then, of course, we have evolved our own styles, thanks in large part in Karen’s case to Century 21 and in Erica’s to Bergdorfs. Erica’s clothes are more refined, in natural colors. Think Bruno Cucinelli. Karen’s are a bit crazier, and neon. Think Stine Goya. Neither one if us has quite achieved the Iris Apfel style sweep–though Karen is trying to emulate her affinity for colorful eyewear. Maybe we still aren’t old enough to have Apfel’s authority. (We certainly have not lived long enough.) But like her, we are both conscious of how we are messaging.

Retirement couture is our latest conundrum. We don’t have anything to prove, but we still want to send a message–we’re still here, we have much to offer, we are part of the wider world, and you dismiss us at your peril. There is not an obvious approach to post-career dressing, so we’re making it up as we go, and hoping designers catch on to our growing ranks. The good news is–we can actually wear pretty much anything. We are still the women we always were. We still shop in Century 21 and Bergdorf, often mingling with career women and younger people. We are not so different from them–just more so. .Our clothes have become less formal, but otherwise are very much inspired by the instincts we had when we were young–to telegraph our presence.

Decades of life have distilled our essence, not changed us into a different species. We’ve graduated from the treadmill, but we’re still in the mix.

Do you use style the same way? What message do you send?

PS: Obviously, men send and receive the meesages of attire as well. We were amused by this comment in last week’s Lauren Indvik’s Financial Times newsletter:

On a recent trip in Madrid, Robert Armstrong, the FT’s US financial commentator and longstanding men’s style columnist, learned a new word: fachaleco.

“It refers, my Spanish informants tell me, to a quite specific sort of vest: a lightweight black or blue ribbed puffer, usually worn over a white shirt and often under a blue suit jacket,” he writes in his column this month. “On the weekend, it can be dressed down, put on under a green Barbour jacket and over a pair of khakis. The fachaleco is worn by a man of any age who might, typically, work in finance, quite certainly loathes the socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez, likes laissez-faire economics, dislikes illegal immigration and strongly disapproves of Catalan separatism.”