I remember when I first saw the Maysles's brothers movie that changed the way I viewed profile documentaries. Grey Gardens (1975) unfolded as it did there were no interviews well, there were some, but they were very off the cuff coming from behind the camera. If the portrait of Edith Bouvier and her daughter, Edith Bouvier Beale, cousins of Jacqueline Onassis, didn't want you to go out and get a video camera and become a documentarian, there wouldn't be much else that could inspire the filmmaker in you.
Where Albert Maysles captured Edie, he captures again with Iris. Irish Apfel, a 93-year-old accidental fashionista, is a mix of kitsch and eccentricity. While known in New York fashion circles, an exhibition of her collection by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005, quite by accident after another exhibit punked out, was really what put her in the limelight.
She splits her time between New York and Palm Beach, with both abodes practically overtaken by her collection of costume jewelry and thrift-store finds.
Maysles' captures her day-to-day, sometimes doting over husband, Carl, who turned 100 years old during the filming of the movie. It all started with Carl and Iris, who owned a textile company with Iris's eye becoming the reason their textiles ended up adorning everything from the White House to palaces. She began her collecting during the exotic trips she and Carl would take searching for the perfect fabric.
The documentary allows, through Maysles's lens, Iris's outspokenness about how fashion has changed; it's her perspective into what it means to have singular fashion sense in an era where cookie-cutter is the name of the game.
Apfel mentors a group of University of Texas students who have come to New York — textile and apparel students guided by the geriatric mentor through New York's fashion district. In another scene, she's selling a clothing line on Home Shopping Network, and, in one of the best, we go behind the window dressing at Bergdorf Goodman where they are creating an Iris display. Then it's MAC cosmetics whose decided to put Iris's face larger-than-life on a shopping bag!
Apfel's personality, and those who encourage her, is as big as the eye-popping spectacles that have become her signature.
While you may wonder why Mrs. Apfel became the subject of a documentary when poolside at the Breakers in Palm Beach could net a number of Iris's, Maysles finds something around every corner that makes her a stand out.
Maysles died on March 5 leaving us Iris and inspiring us again with the genius of his style. (It's the second to last documentary of his; His final is In Transit, a documentary set aboard the Empire Builder, America's longest, busiest stretch of passenger rail connecting to Chicago to Seattle. Look for it coming soon to a theater or a film festival near you.
