Dedicated follower of fashion

Iris is a documentary portrait of Iris Apfel, the nonagenarian New York fashion icon. Nope, me neither, but that’s irrelevant, as all you truly need know is she is a joy, a wonder, and terrific, as is this film. It’s the final work of documentary film-maker Albert Maysles, who died last year, at 88, and although Iris obviously loves the camera, and plays to the camera, and it is often Iris doing Iris, as Iris does Iris so brilliantly, who cares? Also, you just can’t take your eyes off her. You can’t.

The opening shots show Iris, who is 93, in her Park Avenue apartment, in all her glory. Accessories make an outfit, is a fashion tip often proffered, but why make an outfit, when you can blast it out of the water? That seems to be Iris’s thinking, I would say, and she works it even though you wouldn’t imagine it possible. The outfits are madly patterned, or stripes layered upon stripes. They are hand-painted Versace, or vintage Valentino, or one-off Dior. But blasted they are, by the bangles that clank up to her elbows, the several statement necklaces worn simultaneously, and the glasses so oversized they make Edna Mode’s (from The Incredibles; do look her up) seem small fry, if not pathetic. She gets dressed, she says, as if she’s playing jazz! ‘Try this, try that…’ She also says: ‘The best thing isn’t going to a party or being at a party it is getting dressed for a party.’ She gives good one-liners. ‘Whatever I have two of, one of them hurts,’ is how she describes old age, but that only made me think she’d got off lightly. I’m not yet 93 but whatever I have two of, both hurt, and whatever I have one of, that hurts too.