Iris Apfel net worth: How much was she worth at the time of her death?

Iris Apfel net worth: How much was she worth at the time of her death—

Iris Apfel was an American businesswoman, interior designer, fashion icon and actress who had a net worth of $25 million at the time of her death.

In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel had a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencies.

In retirement, she drew acclaim for a 2005 show at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring her collection of costume jewelry and styled with clothes on mannequins as she would wear it.

She became a fashion icon, she signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97, and she was featured in a 2014 documentary called Iris by Albert Maysles.

Iris Apfel died on March 1, 2024, at her home in Palm Beach, Florida. She was 102 years old.

Who was Iris Apfel ?

Born Iris Barrel in Astoria, Queens, New York City, on August 29, 1921, Apfel was the only child of Samuel Barrel (1897–1967), whose family owned a glass and mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye “Syd” Barrel (née Asofsky, 1898–1998), who owned a fashion boutique. Both were Jewish.

Although raised on a farm by her parents and grandparents, she often rode the subway in to explore Manhattan, where she fell in love with Greenwich Village. While still a child, she shopped its antique shops, starting her extraordinary collection of jewelry from around the world.

She studied art history at New York University and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin

Career

As a young woman, Apfel worked as a copywriter for Women’s Wear Daily, earning $15 a week, and for interior designer Elinor Johnson, dressing apartments for resale and honing her talent for sourcing rare items. She was also an assistant to illustrator Robert Goodman.

On February 22, 1948, she married Carl Apfel. Two years later, in 1950, they launched the textile firm Old World Weavers and ran it until they retired in 1992. The Apfels specialized in the reproduction of fabrics from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and traveled to Europe twice a year in search of textiles they could not source in the United States.

The business’s New York showroom was located at 115 East 57th Street in Manhattan. Over her career, Iris Apfel took part in a variety of design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidents: Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.

She found the White House contract to be among the easiest of Old World Weaver’s clients, as they generally wanted only to replicate what had previously been in place. The one exception, Apfel said, was Jacqueline Kennedy. Apfel recalled: “She employed a very famous Parisian designer to gussy up the house and make it a real Frenchie, and the design community went bananas. After that, we had to throw it all out and start again. But I did like Mrs Nixon. She was lovely.”

Through their business, the couple began travelling all over the world where Apfel also bought pieces of non-Western, artisanal clothes. She wore these clothes to clients’ high-society parties.

In 2011, Iris Apfel became a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in its Division of Textiles and Apparel.

In 2016, she performed in a television commercial for the French car DS 3 and was the face of the Australian brand Blue Illusion. In March 2016, Apfel announced a collaboration with technology startup WiseWear on an upcoming line of smart jewelry. In 2018 she published a biography with HarperCollins entitled Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon.

In 2019, at the age of 97, she signed a modelling contract with global agency IMG. Seeing she was frequently sought out for appearances, Tommy Hilfiger encouraged her to sign with formal representation.