The process starts Magic Johnson Michigan State Basketball Player Signature Graphic T-shirt with me bringing in pieces from my wardrobe that hold meaning for me: There is the sleeveless A-line dress with pastel green and purple flowers that I wore under my doctoral gown the day I received my PhD; the Yohji Yamamoto suit I wore to my first day of class as a professor of social work and law. There is an oversized burnt-orange coat that covers me like a blanket, which I wear when I want to feel warm and safe, and a paisley Indian print dress I wore in the 1970s and now throw on when I go to the beach. Its colors are faded, and the thin cotton fabric is almost transparent after being worn for so many years — it seems on the brink of disintegration. We have many conversations about the experiences attached to clothing during different periods of my life. We discuss how what I wear now, or want to wear, can allow experiences from different times of my life to be remembered. My young friends are curious about how I came to be empowered to wear what I want, to use clothes as devices to tell my personal stories and see style as being unique to every person.
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That is Magic Johnson Michigan State Basketball Player Signature Graphic T-shirt until Jackie Kennedy moved in. “She employed a very famous Parisian designer to gussy up the house and make it a real Frenchie, and the design community went bananas. After that we had to throw it all out and start again,” Apfel said. Apfel never really retired — she once called retirement “a fate worse than death” — though life was somewhat slower in 2005 when she was approached by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art about staging an exhibition of her accessories. She was in her early 80s at the time, and curator Harold Koda had heard she had one of America’s best collections of costume jewelry. Initially, Koda asked for accessories and jewelry, then for five full outfits, Apfel wrote in her book, “Accidental Icon: Musings from a Geriatric Scarlet.” By the time Apfel, Koda and his Met museum staff had finished exploring her labyrinth wardrobe, cupboards and storage boxes, they left with 300 outfits and hundreds of accessories. The exhibition, “Rara Avis (Rare Bird),” was the first time the museum had paid tribute to a living woman who was not a fashion designer. It was a hit and Apfel was lauded worldwide as a style icon.