Carl Apfel is the husband of Iris Apfel. Carl Apfel’s wife Iris is an American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion icon. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel led a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencies. Who is Iris Apfel’s husband?

Carl Apfel: Bio Summary

Iris Apfel’s husband died at the age of 100

Carl Apfel was born on August 4, 1914, in  New York City, New York, USA to his parent. His zodiac sign is Leo. He is known for his lifelong marriage with Iris Apfel. He died on August 1, 2015, in Palm Beach, Florida, USA. As inspiring as Iris Apfel’s personal style is to many people, so is her decades-long love story with her husband Carl. The couple was married for nearly 70 years, during which time they founded their own textile company, co-starred in a documentary(Iris 2014), and maintained a romance that only seemed to grow stronger over time.

How did Iris Apfel and her husband Carl Apfel meet?

Iris Apfel and her husband Carl Apfel met while they were staying at a resort on Lake George in upstate New York, according to an interview with The Guardian. “Our first date was Columbus Day,” Apfel said. “Thanksgiving, Carl proposed. Christmas I got blinged. Washington’s birthday, we were married.”

The sweet lovers were immediately attracted to one another, and their love, affection, and droll senses of humor are on display in their documentary Iris. “There was something about her that just got into me,” Iris’s husband Carl revealed in the documentary.

“It’s always there.” Sitting beside him on the couch, Iris gives him a pat on the hand and says, “Awe, my little pussycat … And I figured he was cool and he was cuddly, and he cooked Chinese, so I couldn’t do any better.”

The couple’s love grew after their first meeting and by February 22, 1948, they were ready to exchange vows and stay together for the rest of their life till death do them part. “I never wanted a wedding; I wanted to elope,” Iris Apfel admitted in her documentary-  “I said I’d rather have the money, but the parents and the grandparents wanted the wedding … It was a fairly small wedding—I think 125 people—but very posh.”

And on her happy day, Iris Apfel got to wear the wedding dress of her dreams.“The dress was pink lace, and I’m really very practical, so I wanted a dress that I could wear after the wedding and not just put in a box,” Iris explained. “I still have these shoes 66 and a half years later,” she added. “They were pale pink satin. They’re back in style. If you hang around long enough, everything comes back.”

After two years of marriage, the sweet couple- Iris and her husband, Carl Apfel co-founded a company together- Old World Weavers textile company, which specialized in restoring furnishings for homes. “We never intended to go into the fabric business,” she said. “Nothing I ever did I intended to do. Everything just kind of happened.”

“She had a very big decorating business,” Carl said in Iris. “I would go along with her. I’d take my little toolbox, hang the pictures. And I got a kick out of watching her make something beautiful.”

According to Quartz, the couple worked on projects for the White House during the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton. 

Did Iris Apfel and her husband, Carl Apfel have any children?

Iris and her husband Carl decided not to have children, partly because of the amount of travel their work necessitated; she did not want children to be raised by a nanny. The fashion icon was as dedicated to the unconventional in her domestic life as she was in her personal style. “I don’t believe in a child having a nanny, so it wasn’t what we were going to do, but also having children is like protocol,” Iris told the Guardian. “You’re expected to. And I don’t like to be pigeonholed.”

Carl Apfel’s death in 2015 at the age of 100

Iris’s husband Carl Apfel died in 2015. He was 100 years old when he and his wife, Iris allowed the film crew to document their life for Iris. “I want to do more things in this life with my child bride, and if the Lord let’s me do it, I’ll sure enjoy it,” Carl had said. He passed away that same year, just three days before his 101st birthday, on August 1, 2015.

According to the New York Times, Carl wore a ring that he never took off. The large Egyptian ring was engraved with the phrase “Where Is Thy Father’s House?” During the 1950s, Iris persuaded an antiquarian in Dublin to sell her the ring off Carl’s own finger, and Carl never took it off, most likely because it was stuck. The ring fell off two days before he died.

Despite the death of Carl Apfel, his wife, Iris’ love for fashion is undimmed. “I always like to do things as if I’m playing jazz; try this, try that,” Iris said. “With me, it’s not intellectual. It’s all gut … It’s totally, totally the involvement and the process. It’s the process I like much better even than wearing it. Iris is 101 years old as of 2022.

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