Iris Apfel’s beauty mantra: ‘You can be attractive at any age’

Fashion and beauty icon Iris Apfel celebrated her 101st birthday in August this year, but you wouldn’t know it. A New York native, her career has included a stint at Women’s Wear Daily, a home design deal with the White House that spanned nine presidencies, and a contract with global modelling agency IMG at 97.

Today, she shares her kooky style and sense of humour with her 2 million Instagram followers. “I don’t know why there’s this mad obsession to look years younger than you are,” Apfel tells The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. “If you’re lucky and God gives you extra years, I should think you’d want to flaunt it and not hide it. I think you can be attractive at any age. I think trying to look like a spring chicken when you’re not makes you look ridiculous.”

Apfel this week launched a collection with London beauty brand Ciaté. The line, available exclusively in Australia with Mecca, includes an eyeshadow palette, lipsticks, and nail decals. It’s the second make-up collaboration for Apfel, who worked with MAC in 2011 on a 20-product range of colourful lipsticks, eyeshadows, eyeliners, and nail polishes, inspired by rare birds.

Asked what her favourite product is from the new line, she says, “I couldn’t possibly choose just one, it’s like saying who is your favourite child!”

It’s clear that Apfel was heavily involved in the design process. The collection is pure “Iris” through and through, with cherry-red lipsticks, her signature aqua eyeshadow, and tiny cartoons of her face for the nail stickers. “I am obsessed with brightly coloured lipsticks,” Apfel says. “Anyone can put on a lipstick!”

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The best beauty advice she’s ever received? “Someone told me flat out that I wasn’t beautiful, as if I’m cockeyed and couldn’t look in the mirror for myself and figure that out. At any rate, she gave me a better piece of advice and said ‘you have something better than beauty, you have style’,” recalls Apfel.

The centenarian has a blunt, “take it or leave it” attitude when it comes to beauty ideals. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it’s an individual problem.”

She says she feels most beautiful when she dresses how she wants to dress. “If it doesn’t make you feel comfortable or becomes a chore, then it’s not worth it.”