What to Wear with Gray Hair… What Would Iris Apfel Say?

“What to wear with gray hair?” We get this question a lot!

We often give styling advice, suggest colors, and recommend accessories, but we wonder… what would Iris Apfel say?

A 90 something year-old businesswoman, interior designer, fashion icon, and former decorator for the White House, Iris is a breath of fresh air.

From her interview with The Telegraph…

“I can’t tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It’s just instinctive….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.”

And her interview with Panache…

“In the right tonalities, I never met a color I didn’t like. I love turquoise and reds. I’m not too keen on pastels. They make me look wimpy. I like black and white together a lot – it’s very crisp.”

“I think dressing up or down should be a creative experience. Exciting. Fun. For me the key to personal style lies in accessories. I love objects from different worlds, different eras, combined my way. Never uptight, achieving – hopefully – a kind of throwaway chic.”

And with the NZHerald.co.nz….

“When I was four years old, my family and I were away for the summer at a resort. My mother loved to dress me up and one evening she was dressing me for dinner and I begin to scream and stamp my feet. Everyone came running in thinking something was wrong. I was having a tantrum because she put a big hair ribbon in my hair that didn’t match the rest of my outfit. Eventually, I grew not to like ‘matchy matchy’, so my mother’s choice was right.”

“You have to learn who you are first and then express that through your style. Don’t try to be anyone else. I think trying to look like a spring chicken when you’re not makes you look ridiculous.”

What Iris has to say about going gray (from her interview with Into the Gloss)…

“I’ve been grey since almost forever. I always say I looked like a skunk—I had black hair with a wide white streak. From that, it started to get pepper and salt. My mother always did her hair. I guess she wasn’t a fan of that, her daughter having grey hair—it made her feel older, I suppose. I wouldn’t dye it, so we compromised on streaks—it was very fashionable back then. Oh, I hated it. I couldn’t wait for it to grow out. So it turned from pepper and salt to grey, and then it turned white. I get it cut by Hervé at Elizabeth Arden. And fortunately, my husband likes grey hair. He’s ninety-seven. I was saying this morning, if we last until February, we’ll be married sixty-four years.”