IRIS APFEL

The fashion industry has done itself in by neglecting the 60- to 80-year-old market. They have the time and the economic resources. They want to go shopping.

Colour can raise the dead.

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.

There was Pauline de Rothschild, who I thought was very fabulous, and Millicent Rogers, the Standard Oil heiress, very chic, very clever, very original. I admired both those women very much. And I had a great example with my mother, who was extremely chic.

In America, it has been proven that the bulk of spending money is in the hands of women between 60 and 80, so it's so stupid. The people who do have the time and money to shop are either retired or empty-nesters.

I still have the dress I wore on the first date with my husband, which was more than 66 years ago. I still have it, and it still fits.

I'm not a collector of clothes. I've got clothes to wear.

Clothes are not frippery. Properly done, they can be an art form.

I was never a fan of Chanel. I liked it on other people. Some other people. All the ladies who were too plump and busty looked like little sausages.

I like to improvise.

I'm from New York. My grandparents were settlers of Long Island City. When they came here, there was no bridge, and they had to hire a boat across the river. They had a farm, and my grandmother had to go once a week to Manhattan to buy provisions - very primitive.

I love high-end designers, but a head-to-toe designer look for me is extremely boring. I've always mixed it up.

Being an individual takes effort. Most people are pretty lazy. And that's OK! I mean, there are more important things than fashion. If it's going to stress you out to have a sense of style, don't do it. The important thing is to be comfortable so you can get on with your life.

I don't expect to find inspiration. It just sort of comes. Sometimes you step on a bug and you get inspired.

I go out in New York, and I think, boy, you can look at someone and pretty much determine their zip code. Everyone seems to want to conform. I wonder, are they all just button-pressers, on the Internet all day long? I don't know.

The world is not black and white; there are lots of shades of grey. There are good things and bad things in every era, and I think it's kind of very blindfolded to say one era was wonderful, as it was wonderful, but there were a lot of bad things as well.

I mix everything up. A museum curator once said to me that there is a great jazz component to the way I do things because good jazz is improvisation and draws elements from all different cultures. And that's the way I do everything - the way I dress and decorate.

You don't find out who you are unless you work at it.

Oh my God, I'm a walking advertisement for discounted shopping.

I absolutely consider fashion a form of art. Of course, there is some fashion that is not art at all - it's utilitarian, made for the purpose of covering up. And there are a lot of people out there who put a lot of effort into looking awful. But there are also people putting the same amount of energy into making bad art.

Self-exploration is very painful, but unless you do that, you will never know who you are and who you want to be.

I didn't have children, but I never wanted children.

In my view, you can't go to the future if you haven't come from the past.

I'm a practical person. Most fashion people live in the clouds, and they're full of it. I live like a human being - or, I try to - and I have to be intelligent; I have to be practical. I'm a great believer in common sense, and the older I get, I see that common sense is not that common.

Nothing I ever did I expected to do. It just kind of happened.