by Iris Apfel
He always replied, “I just shot my couch.”
He was always good at shooting from the hip.
At one point, we created fabric and passementerie for Marjorie Merriweather Post for the redecoration of Hillwood, her magnificent estate just outside of Washington, D.C.
One morning, the telephone rang.
“This is Marjorie Merriweather Post,” the caller said. “And I need to speak to Mr. Apfel immediately about the fabric I have just received.” I asked her to hold on and, trembling, I summoned Carl to the phone.
“Mr. Apfel,” she said. “I am in my salon sitting at the top of an eighteen-foot ladder with a ruler in my hand. I am admiring the window treatments that were installed last evening. The fabric is marvelous; and I just love the festoons and trimmings. Tell me,” she went on, “these little decorative bits that go across the top—how many should I expect to have in a running yard?”
Photo Credit: Art Department: © 2017 Carlos Aponte/Illustration Division
Carl took a deep breath, then spoke.
“Mrs. Post,” he said. “Every morning I eat Post Raisin Bran. Can you tell me how many raisins I am supposed to have per tablespoon?”
“Touché, Mr. Apfel,” she said. “Now I better get down before I break my neck.”
Photo Credit: Bruce Weber: Courtesy Magnolia Pictures
Everyone tells me that I am a
BLACK-BELT SHOPPER.
I like to say I was born with a souk sense.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
I LOVE FLEA MARKETS and open-air markets—oh, I just love markets. Period.
In a former life, I must have been a hunter-gatherer. I like any place where I can forage. I like the thrill of the hunt, the unexpected. I love digging through bins and finding things. There’s just a certain excitement that grabs me, a feeling of energy and mystery because I never know what I’m going to find—that’s what I find so exhilarating.
Haggling is half the fun of it. You have to feel people out: some merchants will haggle and some won’t, regardless of the culture of the market. But in most cases, if you’re told a tunic costs one hundred dollars, and you are foolish enough not to try for a better price, you’ve just ruined the merchant’s day because he feels he made a mistake not to ask you for double.
Although I don’t shop too much anymore, I’m still an avid jewelry collector.
I don’t get any great pleasure if somebody just comes and presents something to me. If I had a sugar daddy who told me to go to the most expensive store in the world and splurge until my heart burst, it would be a sad day. I wouldn’t have any fun at all. I’d find a lot of lovely things, but the thrill wouldn’t be there. I like to dig and scratch. It’s the process that turns me on.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
The White House Years
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
DURING THE TIME Carl and I owned Old World Weavers, from 1950 to 1992, we participated in many design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidential administrations, from Harry S. Truman through Bill Clinton. Because of our work there, people would sometimes refer to me as the “First Lady of Fabric” or “Our Lady of the Cloth,” which amused me.
People always ask me what it was like decorating the White House.
Let me tell you: we didn’t decorate the White House, and neither did Jacqueline Kennedy or any of the other first ladies, for that matter, because historically accurate restoration is the driving force behind any changes to the building or its furnishings.
That’s the rule.
We didn’t come in and say: “We don’t like the scale of this; it should be reduced” or “We don’t like this color; we should change it to that color.”
We didn’t work for the presidential administrations, either; we worked for the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, re-creating the antique fabrics as close to the original as humanly possible. The commission reviews all designs proposed for new or restored government buildings, among other things.
We did our best to make the main floor of the White House exactly as it was when the original furniture was introduced. Whatever we were re-covering, we had to make absolutely sure that everything we touched was historically accurate.
We also did work on the second floor, in the private quarters where the First Family lives. There are no rules there; they can decorate that space—bedrooms, guest bedrooms, private sitting rooms—the way they want to.
Photo Credit: Rebecca Karamehmedovic
Most of the presidents and first ladies weren’t terribly interested in restoration or decoration at all, except for Pat Nixon, who was passionately interested in everything we did, even though she knew nothing about the finer points of historical restoration. She often would ask if she could accompany Edward Vasson Jones, the interior architect for the White House at the time, when he came to visit us. Mr. Jones made all the necessary decisions on the refurbishing.
We let Mrs. Nixon pick out the fabric samples she liked, and she’d take them back to Washington with her. Invariably, she’d call the next day and say sheepishly, “Mrs. Apfel, as usual, I selected the wrong thing. Please choose what’s correct and come to Washington on Thursday for lunch.” In the end, we always knew that Mr. Jones would make the right choices; we never had the heart to correct Mrs. Nixon because she was such a lovely lady.
The Language of Fabric
MY FIRST TRIP TO ITALY was to Naples. I found it very unusual. It had a tinge of Africa about it—it’s a great melting pot of boisterous, outgoing people.
About an hour or so to the north, there’s a city called Caserta. It became a silk center when the Bourbon kings arrived and set up a palace. They brought craftspeople with them to produce their fabrics and in the process established a group of very high-end silk mills.
The first mill we went to hired an interpreter because we didn’t speak a word of Italian and the fellow in charge there didn’t speak a word of English. The interpreter was a funny little man, very short with graying red hair parted in the middle; he wore eyeglasses with very small lenses, which reminded me of Benjamin Franklin. For some reason, he had a cucumber in his pocket. Every time he thought nobody was looking, he took a bite of the cucumber.
There we learned that the language of fabric is not in the dictionary, as our interpreter spent the whole time looking—I can still see him licking his finger and turning the pages—for words that weren’t there. But not speaking the native language turned out not to matter because we were on the same wavelength as the mill owner. We didn’t need language; we understood each other—and fabric.
All the same, I knew I had to learn Italian or else doing business would be almost impossible. Since I had no time to go to school, I learned by listening very intently. I put words and actions together. I bought some Italian children’s books, like Pinocchio. I developed an enormous vocabulary, but knew no grammar. I speak Italian only in the first person and in the present tense. This way of thinking taught me something very important: to be present, to live in the now. If people ask me if I speak Italian, I say, “Yes, with courage and no verbs.”
I’ve found that speaking well doesn’t matter. If you are open and have a sense of humor about the way in which you’re communicating, people can read your expressions and body language to get a sense of what you are about.
Actions speak louder than words.
Photo Credit: Fototeca Gilardi/AKG Images
Around the World in Eighty Years
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
DOLPHINS SWAM BESIDE US and jumped out of the water as if to greet us, as my father and I sailed up the Bosphorus and into Istanbul for the first time. It was dawn. The sky was azure and clear; there was not a television antenna in sight. When I returned just a few years later with Carl, it was another story—the pollution was terrible and the s
ky was filled with wires.
In Paris in 1952, if you weren’t seated for dinner by seven thirty, you didn’t eat. Now if you come in before nine o’ clock, everyone looks at you like you have two heads. It’s my conviction that dining later and later is a sign of a degenerating society.
Traveling makes life rich. And I like a good adventure. I’ve never gone anyplace where I wasn’t working; actually, I don’t like to go to a resort and just sit there. I never have. I don’t know what I would do with myself. Carl and I traveled all the time for our business. We went all over Europe, to Paris and London numerous times, and I think we covered every square inch of Italy. We made many acquaintances through work, so we learned about great markets and who had the best of everything. We discovered things by just walking everywhere. Wandering down little streets, you stumble into things, whether it’s a tiny shop that carries incredible buttons of all colors and shapes or a local lacemaker. That’s how I became familiar with these cities and where to shop, and that’s how I decorated my home and built my collections.
Amo l’Italia! And if you’ve never been, I’d say see as much of Italy as possible. That Rome is still standing is extraordinary. I love that there are piazzas everywhere you turn; that you can come around a corner and find yourself in front of the Pantheon; and that there are still grand palaces like the Doria Pamphilj, with its courtyard and orange trees, sitting just off the Via del Corso. I’ll never forget the trulli—circular drystone buildings in ancient Apulia; there are no other buildings like that anywhere in the world.
Venice is like being in a strange, decadent dream—the Moorish architecture; the striped pilons with their peeling paint, which the gondolas are tied to; the water slapping against the buildings; the tiny alleys that always feel a bit wet. I like that little hint of exotic—it stirs my bones.
That’s why I loved Istanbul, too, with its bazaars of all kinds and old-world culture: it’s beautiful, sophisticated, and gritty. Once we ended up in Bursa, home of the Turkish towel, on a Sunday and there was nothing to do, so we decided to go to one of the baths. I was a bit obsessed with the gold-colored tin they give you for your soap and wash cloth, so I bought one—and still carry it as a handbag today. And I’ll never forget the sight of all the ladies sitting around the edge of the pools—without a stitch on and crocheting baskets.
Tunisia is special. In the markets there, you buy silver jewelry by weight; artisanship and beauty have nothing to do with the price, which always amused me. I loved Sidi Bou Said, a tiny town on a steep cliff, just outside of Tunis. It’s like an itty-bitty version of Capri. All the houses are white with azure doors and trimming, and there are cobblestone streets, and lots of flowers everywhere. On one visit, the mayor’s daughter was getting married in the town square late one night, and we were lucky enough to be invited to the wedding. It seemed like the whole village was there, crowded into the plaza or watching from above, leaning out from their balconies. The whole affair lasted until dawn. They sure knew how to throw a party.
We walked into a lot of experiences like that. In Morocco, we were driving around and stopped to admire a white horse adorned in silver as part of a rural wedding procession. We couldn’t speak a word of Arabic, but the people were so friendly. They invited us to the wedding party—and we went.
Something similar happened when we were driving in Crete. We noticed a large number of cloths spread out along an embankment with grapes drying on them—we got out to look. The people drying the fruit had been watching us. They tried communicating, and the next thing we knew, they were pulling us up the embankment for an outdoor lunch under the Cypress trees.
In 1958, we were touring around the Irish countryside and came upon a cluster of houses with the most charming thatched roofs. I was dying to photograph one of them, but Carl thought it would be rude to do that without asking the owners. So we chose the house with the fattest roof and rang the bell. Out came two elderly gentlemen who readily gave us permission. It was tea time, and the kettle in the antique walk-in fireplace was bubbling. They insisted we stay for a cup. They were delightful.
In Lebanon, we would go to the Baalbeck International Festival, the oldest cultural event in the Middle East, every year. There was this man who’d come every year too, to sell coffee. And it was the worst coffee you can imagine. But he had this gorgeous brass table on which he’d set four smashing brass urns in graduated sizes for the coffee. As the coffee brewed down to the perfect muck, he’d dump the dregs of one urn into another. This went on until there was one urn left filled with coffee that just kept getting stronger and more horrible as it emptied out. But everyone would drink it, and we drank it too, mostly to continue our annual conversation with the proprietor about buying his brass table and urns. And one year, we prevailed—I always wondered whether he was ready to retire or whether we had put him out of business.
Beirut had an incredible casino and a wonderful gold market. In the 1970s, we became friendly with this funny little Russian man at one of the markets. Every time we visited, he’d invite us into his office, where he had all this gorgeous Chinese jewelry that he had brought back from his travels. He loved to drink, and the more he imbibed, the cheaper his wares became. It was ridiculous. Beirut was beautiful, though; it really was the Paris of the Middle East.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
Speaking of Paris, who doesn’t love PARIS?
Photo Credit: Eric Giriat
Everyone should go to Paris.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
BARCELONA, by the way, is not to be missed for the tapas, tapas, tapas, and vino.
I love the little winding streets filled with shops, all the incredible greenery, and the silver jewelry. And of course, for the work of the architect Antoni Gaudí, a fellow lover of color and the unusual.
And then there’s Hong Kong, with its supercharged energy, expats from around the world, and new buildings that scrape the sky. The overlay of Western ideas on old Chinese culture is inescapable—you feel it everywhere.
I’ll never forget London, though. I love the old traditions of London Town. And every day there is another market to go to somewhere. The shops, the museums, the parks, the flowers—they never fail to knock me out. Next to New York, it is the most multilevel city going.
Rio was a study in contrasts. Looking down from the terrace of the luxurious, thirty-odd-room villa where we stayed to the unbelievably abject poverty of the favela below was an emotional experience I could have lived without.
I found Mexico City to be super sophisticated. There, I was particularly enchanted with the architecture, not only the sleek twenty-first-century skyscrapers, but also the townhouses built in the style of Louis XV and Louis XVI during the era of Emperor Maximilian and set on streets that remind me of Paris’s loveliest. I went bananas over the homestead of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Their palette was staggering. Brilliant, bold, saturated colors were everywhere.
Let Them Eat Cake
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Iris Apfel
ITALY WAS ALWAYS a favorite. We visited Siena during Il Palio, which is held twice a year when the city’s seventeen contrade (districts) each enter a horse in the medieval race in the Piazza del Campo. There’s a lot of pageantry and celebration around the event, and each contrada has a social club that holds a banquet the night before. During our stay, I had become friendly with our inn’s majordomo, who invited me to be his guest at his contrada’s banquet.
For dessert, they served a torta della nonna (grandmother’s cake). It’s prepared however Grandma sees fit, but this one was filled with crema pasticcera (custard) and topped with pine nuts and powdered sugar. The crust was made of pasta frolla (shortbread pastry). It was so divine that I told the majordomo I wished I could get cake like that in the States.
He took me to meet the head baker, who was overjoyed that I liked his confection so much and presented me with the recipe, folded neatly into an
envelope.
Later that evening, when I got back to the hotel, I opened the envelope and began to read the recipe ingredients: Four hundred eggs, sixty pounds of flour—honestly, I don’t remember the numbers exactly, but they were outrageous. I started to laugh hysterically: the recipe he had given me was for a cake that would feed the whole contrada.
If an experience was
WONDERFUL,
don’t try to re-create it.
It will never be as
BEAUTIFUL
as it was the first time.
Where Is the House of Thy Father?
Photo Credit: Ruben Toledo
The morning of August 4, 1958 found Carl and me on the deck of the S.S.Coronia, waiting to disembark. It was Carl’s birthday, and we were headed for Dublin’s antique row—Grafton Street—to buy him a present.
Carl was mad for watches. I’d never seen a man with so many watches, everything from the crummiest reproduction to the most expensive Breitling. It was crazy—and he never knew what time it was.
He owned nary a piece of jewelry, though, and I planned to remedy this after he begrudgingly agreed to accept an unusual ring. We went from shop to shop where we found rings of great historical significance and staggering beauty, but nothing with pizzazz.
Before we took the trip, our Manhattan townhouse was broken into and my collection of silver was stolen. They were connoisseur crooks; they took only the best silver, all eighteenth-century Irish silver and Georgian pieces. They took the best liquor. Posing as laundrymen, they made sure to take the furniture cushions with them to complete the ruse, all the while smoking Havana cigars. So, while ring shopping, we decided to replace the stolen silver. We found a store that was a treasure trove—we found our silver and some other things. We had everything set aside and went off to have lunch.