NYC icon dead, 102

Textile & style whiz Iris Apfel

Iris Apfel — the trailblazing textile virtuoso and NYC fixture known for her eclectic style, especially her oversized blackrimmed glasses — died on Friday at home in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 102.

A unique tastemaker, Apfel (right) found herself the focus of museum exhibits, including one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005. She was also featured in a 2007 coffee table book, a groundbreaking 2012 MAC Cosmetics campaign, and a 2014 documentary.

She worked with nine presidential wives on design restoration at the White House, using fabric from Old World Weavers, the textile company she cofounded with her late husband, Carl Apfel.

Apfel was a New Yorker through and through. She was born Iris Barrel on Aug. 29, 1921, an only child in Queens to two Jewish farmers.

Her father, Samuel, ran a mirror and glass business, while her mother, Sadye, owned a clothing boutique, ensconcing her in creativity at a young age.

‘In love with Village’

At just 12 years old, she was taking the subway into Manhattan to window shop, an experience she described to The Guardian in a 2015 interview.

“At that time you could ride the whole subway system for a nickel, so each week I would take a different section of New York — Chinatown, Yorkville, Harlem, Greenwich Village,” she told the outlet.

“And I really fell in love with the Village. The Village was where I started to poke around antique shops and become enchanted with all this old junk.”

Apfel studied art history at New York University before transferring to the University of WisconsinMadison.

After graduating in 1943, she moved back to NYC and began working for Women’s Wear Daily as a copywriter, according to Harper’s Bazaar. She also served as an assistant to interior designer Elinor Johnson.

She became a household name later in life, at the age of 84, when she was tapped for a museum exhibit that was supposed to go up that summer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and she was asked to curate.

The show that ensued was called “Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection,” which ran at The Met from September 2005 to January 2006. It featured 40 of her own accessories, including a Gripoix brooch and a pair of 18th-century paste earrings.

She often referred to herself as an “accidental icon,” a title she also gave her 2018 memoir.