Iris Apfel, an iconoclast interior designer who drew praise for her style and fashion collection, passed away last week at the age of 102. The New York Times is reporting on her influence in the design world this week following her death on March 1st.

Through the work of her label Old World Weavers, the Queens native became a commercial success designing the White House's interiors and remained an influence in that realm for many subsequent generations. Apfel picked up her famous eye from her father, who designed and installed mirrors during New York City’s first skyscraper boom. Throughout her lucky turn at celebrity, she remained a vocal advocate for quality. She also taught a textile design course at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011.

“There’s very little creativity left. Everybody copies everybody else,” she said to AnOther magazine in 2018. “I don’t know whether everybody wants the same or the designers give it to them – I have no idea, I’ve been out of it for too long – but it’s very sad. It used to be that people wanted some individuality, so when you walk into an apartment you know whose apartment it is.”

True to character, Apfel died a very rich old lady with a residence in Palm Beach and an apartment on Park Avenue. A rug collection debuted in late 2022, following a furniture line from 2017. Apfel was an Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award winner and enjoyed the company of many top artistic minds. Gucci, Wes Anderson, and Theaster Gates count among her many admirers. 

“She collaged all these different patterns, colors, eras and cultures, and ended up with something quite lucid,” The Met’s former Costume Institute curator, Harold Koda, remembered in an interview published by WWD Sunday. “As a costume historian, I thought she was peculiarly American.”