Interior designer Iris Apfel told Architectural Digest about the first time she bought jeans: “I live in them most of the time, but I had a helluva time getting a pair of jeans around 1940, when I was at the University of Wisconsin. I thought I’d wear jeans, a turban, and some old earrings. So I went to an Army-Navy store, but you have to remember, back in those days, all the men in Wisconsin were the size of Paul Bunyan. Then the salesman told me, ‘Young ladies don’t wear jeans.’ He wouldn’t sell me any or have them cut down. So I kept going back to the store, and they kept throwing me out, so to get rid of me, they finally ordered me some boys’ jeans. I love men’s jeans; they fit me better.” On a related note, she makes a lot of her own jewelry. “I used to take those beige cardboard tubes that are used for masking tape and draw designs on them with black pens and wear them as bracelets. I have a whole collection of those. You can make all kinds of wonderful stuff. All you need is a little imagination. I don’t know what happens to people’s imaginations. We have it when we’re young, but so many lose it when we grow up.” [Architectural Digest]
