14 DAY TRIAL // She may be 90, but businesswoman slash style guru slash fashion icon Iris Apfel is busier than never. She's now getting ready for the launch of her jewelry collection and, in a recent interview with The Telegraph, she also finds the time to put in her 2 cents on contemporary fashion.
Known for her eccentric look and how she likes to combine the most unexpected items and accessories for a maximum effect, Iris believes style is something you're either born with or not.
No amount of money can buy style but today's celebrities don't know that and they keep trying to.
However, regular people are just as worse when it comes to fashion, she believes.
She would have liked to live in Paris at the beginning of the century or, if not, in New York City in the '50s. Today's fashion makes her physically sick.
“Now when I walk down Fifth Avenue in the summertime I just want to throw up. It seems that the fatter and uglier people are, the fewer clothes they wear. The shorts and flip-flops and tight jeans on butts that go from here to Poughkeepsie,” she tells the British publication.
Fashion police would be a smart idea if it were to actually police people around and not just criticize them for their fashion choices.
“I always say they should put people in jail for wearing clothes like that. Especially stretch jeans over [US] size 10 – they should be outlawed. Ten years ago people were starting to look like slobs in New York, now it's an epidemic,” Iris says.
However, she'd never dare tell somebody to their face that they look awful or, at best, that their choice for an outfit is unfortunate.
“Oh, now that would be horrible. It's a free country – if you want to look like a freak, that's your problem,” she says.
“I can't tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It's just instinctive,” she continues.
“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 adds.