Butler's Cinema Scene

“IRIS” My rating: B

83 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Don’t be surprised if after watching “Iris” you throw open your closet door and sadly conclude that your wardrobe is boring as shit.

After spending time with designer/raconteur/eccentric Iris Apfel, “normal” clothes just don’t cut it any more.

“Iris” is one of the last films from the late, great Albert Maysles, who died March 5 at age 88. With his brother David, Maysles  pioneered the cinema verite movement with films like “Gimme Shelter” and “Gray Gardens,” documentaries that told their stories by closely observing,  eschewing extensive pre-planning and post-production.

Two Apfel outfits from her Metropolitan Museum of Art show

The subject here is Iris Apfel, who for more than 60 years has been a force in American fashion and style.  She’s created and manufactured fabrics, operated a wildly successful interior design operation, and amassed America’s most extensive collection of fashion accessories (in Apfel’s hands damn near anything may prove to be a fashion accessory).

In 2006 the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art mounted a hugely popular show of outfits Apfel assembled from things in her closet.

The first thing to be said about Apfel is that at age 93 she is tremendously sharp and wildly entertaining, with a terrific sense of humor and the up-to-date vocabulary of a twentysomething.

Unlike many in the fashion world, Apfel is no snob. She doesn’t care what you or I think, as long as she feels good in the outfits she assembles. (Putting together these various “looks,” she admits, is more fun than actually wearing them out.)

For one thing, she doesn’t make clothing or other fashion items. Rather, she hits the bargain stores, ethnic markets and swap-and-shops in a never-ending quest for interesting items of clothing and jewelry.

She may take an elaborately embroidered Chinese coat and then embellish it with beads the size of hen’s eggs, a bracelet (usually several of them) as big as a kosher bialy, and an immense feather boa.

Add to that her boyish shock of white hair, her huge bottle-bottom eyeglasses, and a slash of fire-engine red lipstick, and you’ve got a figure who might provoke laughter.  But no one laughs because Iris Apfel has an uncanny ability to make it all work. That’s her genius.

She’s not trying to impress.  It’s all about wearing things that make her feel good.

“It is better to be happy than well dressed,” she observes.

In fact, she is fairly dismissive of what passes for high fashion. The tendency of rich people to fall back on basic black for their evening wear elicits this observation from Apfel: “That’s not style. It’s a uniform.”

While Iris is the center of this wonderful doc, her husband of 60 years, Carl Apfel, comes in a close second. These two obviously adore each other (Maysles’ camera was there when Carl celebrated his 100th birthday).

We see how the Apfels live, both in New York and Palm Beach. Both condos are crammed with odd furniture and art that shouldn’t work together but somehow do. These places are less like residences than high-end thrift stores.

Here’s what’s really great about “Iris”:  It makes you want to take chances with what you wear.

| Robert W. Butler