The title is in fact ironic, because we’re not talking about the eyes, but the mouth.

Everything that has sprung from her wrinkley lips I find hilarious. She’s not just “Some old lady

that dresses weirdly”. She absolutely quote worthy.

She’s a comical collector who is 5 years away from having lived a whole century. She’s

certainly old enough and bold enough to tell you what she’s about. Today were celebrating her

mouth...

Happy 95th Birthday Iris, it’s over to you!

When it come to the masculine side of the family my Father’s talent was knowing the price of every cheese in every European city. It

was my Granddad who was amused to no end with my youthful interest in poking around in his faux treasures. Having been born with a souk sense, it was hard to

resist. This stood me in good stead for when I traveled the world with Carl, collecting items for our interior design business, Old World Weavers. The business started as a suitcase which Carl lugged around during his lunch hour to test the

market. Little does Carl know that I once fell in love with a silk tie printed shirtmaker dress.

Yet Carl, unlike the dress could do so many things that I couldn’t that it made me feel complete. He was charming, caring, cuddly, cute and he can even cook Chinese.

Best of all he really made me laugh despite being a god-damn handful!

Carl’s oriental culinary skills were perfect to accompany my Qing Dynasty costume collection, which sits alongside the portraits of dogs and strange

chairs that I have acquired over the years.

I started travelling because my clients at Old World Weavers, didn’t want any old thing that everybody else had, understandable when designing the interiors of the

White House, The White House is the work I’m most proud of.

I decided to give a few other members of the hoarder brigade a bell, since Iris was preoccupied, it was Monday and as we know, that’s Iris’s “relax in slacks night”

My Granny’s house, had that old people smell, the one you know you associate with old people, you can’t really define it, it’s just Eau De La olde. Anything that she and her bridge

bandits thought was worth collecting she would.

The attic was overflowing, whenever I was invited to a fancy dress party I knew who to call.

You just had to make your way past these huge boxes of embroidery threads, the dog thimble collection, the fake Van Gough’s and some very questionable handbags from some

dodgey shop like M&Co and you’re there. You could be Chinese Kong Fu Master meets disco queen meets flapper girl all in one look if you didn’t want to look like every other Audrey

Hepburn at the due.

What I’m talking about here is hoarding, it’s like brushing your teeth at night, some of us do it, some of don’t. (By the way if you don’t do the latter you should really start doing that!)

A disease to some, a pleasure to others. Iris went from a kooky resident of New York to semi-household name when the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcased her costume

jewelry collection in the Rare Bird of Fashion xhibition in 2005. If it wasn’t for hoarding then Iris would yes still be scouting the shops for the best bargain bracelets but

would probably fill her time playing sudoku and watching old films in the meantime like all the other Grannies.

Introducing the next-level hoarders...

“my Qing Dynasty costume collection sits alongside the portraits of dogs and strange

chairs that I have acquired over the years”

Andrew Howe-Davis makes money from the madness.

Co- founder of a prop rental business, he runs a huge ware-

house in Park Royal called Stockyard.

What surrounds me as I start chatting to

Andrew is 60,000 square feet of props

that are used for film and television set

dressing. I never thought I’d

see a complete facade of 10 Downing Street

beside decomposed bodies in different conditions, leaning up against a life size polar bear perched right by the period street lights that

look like they belong in singing and the

rain.

A playground of props. Here there’s battleships,

Poiret’s coffin, Harry potters books, there’s

a fire department, post office, Blenheim Palace style gates, 1000 WW1

bombs, a Dr. Who cham-ber, aircraft seats from

economy to first, luggage worthy of the orient

express, Victorian china dolls, woven Asian

windows, Roman pillars and even mannequins

from different eras. My own eye is confused

whether I’m distracted by the huge cogs from the

hugo set, the collection of Japanese calligraphy

notebooks, or the life size horse chess pieces.

I still can’t decide.

After trekking through several realms we sit

down in the office which is consumed by old oil paintings. We have a

coffee and a mince pie whilst the receptionists

are busy unpacking boxes of glittering masquerade masks which have just

been shipped from Italy. Whilst trying them on, Andrew jokes that they

should become permanent attire for

answering the phones on the front desks.

So Andrew would you call yourself a hoarder?Yes! I’m a professional hoarder!

What is your favourite period in history ‘props-wise’ ? Most Definitely Georgian!

So, how did you become interested in the film industry? Well..I left school at 14, I didn’t like school. My Father said “Andrew you’ve got to do something!” So I got an apprenticeship in Pinewood film studios, they ran a schemes for 4 students a year. I Did a year in the mail room and being dogs body. Then one day I went into the head of department’s office and he said “So Andrew what would you like to be?, would you like to be a film director?” I chose Art direction and they said “Fine” it was like a magic wand “Oh ok you’ll become an Art Director then!”. So they sent me off to history of architecture courses.

The first film I did was the Battle of Britain in the 1960s. In those days the production department were responsible for everything apart from the hair and makeup. It’s now become so huge that visual effects has become a bespoke part of the production department I became a freelance designer in the 1980s.

That’s where I met other designers, in those days we shared stock and space. There were about 5 of us based in Shepperton studios, then the rents went up.

Why did you decide to go from production designer to professional hoarder? Having retired from the industry, everyone comes to me, I see all these old faces, it’s like I’m still working. They’ve all got to get up at 6 in the morning and go to some god-forsaken place to start filming in the freez-ing cold, hang around till 11 at night and do the same thing the next morning, ghastly! This is a much nicer way of working. I retired in 2005 and what you’ll find as you start working is that everybody is desperate to take your job off you, as soon as you say “I want half the amount of work” you cut your own throat. Then it get’s around the field “Oh Andrew’s retiring, and all the other bods jump in. Luckily Stockyard came at just the right time, I had much more time to promote it and kit it all out. The whole process worked in perfect synergy. The business is in it’s second stage now, we’ve got much more stock than we need and now we’ve become well known they contact me to buy the prop stock at the end of films, I’ve just bought props from Mr Selfridge, The Bond film, Star Wars and Mission Impossible. We don’t advertise, it’s all word of mouth.

You collect props for a living, but do you have collect anything for pleasure? Cars, I have eight classic cars, three of them are stored in this very warehouse. One is called Skat who’s an Italian racing car, Rusty Plum, the 1920s Lagonda -it used to just be Plum because that’s my Mother’s name but my 7 year old son Henry nicknamed her Rusty so that was that.The third one that’s here is my Early 1908 Renault limousine, that’s the one I got married in. I’m big into my car rallies, Betty has been to Australia and New Zealand and we always do the London to Brighton with her. My car obsession aside, I love to collect old papers, i’ll never hire them out, things like early shop receipts and bills from the 1930s, like hairdressers and drycleaners, where it’s all done it copper plate. The in-dustry is geared up by first impressions but there are all these items, that are so beautiful because of the detail.

If you had to, get rid of one would it be Stockyard or your cars? Stockyard would have to go! It’s what brings in the money, but I adore my cars.

What do you think made you becoming interested in collecting things? Well my mother was a serious hoarder, she used to collect all these odd little things, bits of china, strangely enough I used to hate it, I used to go in there and moan about all the rubbish she kept in there. When it got to the point of actually having to throw things away she just couldn’t do it. Her hoarding was down to the wartime mentality, everything was being taken from you, even railings that were taken to make armaments. So she began to hang onto everything she had.

I don’t like hoarding when it’s toot, plastic toot like my Mother collected, utter rubbish!I’m passionate about details, I like items for their historical interest and the quality of the manufacturing.

“My Mother was a hoarder,

it was the wartime

mentality, everything was

being taken from

her, so she began to hang

onto everything she had”

As a Costume Designer and maker specialising in comedy Geoff Slack has had some funny moments.

He told me that the strangest thing he’s ever made is a pair of rubber testicles. Being part of the London fashion scene in the 80s whilst completing his degree in fashion design at Ravensbourne, he was like many an avid party-goer. He remembers Leigh Bowery picked him up, grabbed hold of his hands and swung him round on the street outside the nightclub ‘The Limelight’ in Shaftesbury Avenue, hopefully he had the right shoes on to take the landing.

Geoff admits he is addicted to shoe collecting of which he has 380 pairs. That’s 15 pairs more than days of the year. Finishing college he side-stepped from fashion into Costume Design.

Unfortunately I interviewed him over the phone, so didn’t have a chance to check out his footwear.

The shoe

hoarde

r

“When I left

college, I realised I hated the cut throat fashion

buisness, I then wiggled my way into

costume which has funded my

shoe collection ever since”

Hi Geoff how are you? I’m well I’ve just been called to workon a film by my friend, he called me and said “HELLLLP!” the producers always think that you can do something in 1 day that will actually take you 2 or 3. I’ve come to the rescue. We’re working on the film Marvel with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. It will be very beautiful, but the designs are very complicated and fiddly to make, it’s one of those things that you look at and think “I have no idea what bit goes where” usually you can see “ooh that’s a sleeve, that’s a bodice, that’s a skirt” but with these it’s like a puzzle.

So I hear you’ve got an very extensive shoe collection, how did this come about? Doing fashion design as a degree, I had the mentality that I’m not going to spend x amount on that because I could make something bonkers for less, that you can wear for one day and throw away. It’s not as easy to knock up a pair of shoes, so I brought them. When I left college I spent my entire pay check on a pair of John Law shoes (sadly no longer with us). I’ve still got those shoes!

Would you say you were addicted to shoe collecting? Hmmm...well yes, at the moment there is a holding bay of 4 that I haven’t worn. I keep seeing things and think, I need that! The last pair I saw was a Dsquared desert boot, olive green heel and a ponyskin printed front,

they are rather sensational if I do say so myself! I was talking to someone at work and they said “I’ve never seen you in the same pair of shoes for the whole of the time we’ve been here which is coming up 3 months”

Have you got any shoe rules? Well you definitely can’t wear the same pair of shoes 2 days in a row! Mostly for practical reasons because obviously you feet sweat during the day and the shoes need to dry out, that way your shoes will last longer. I’ve got shoes that I’ve had for 15, 20 years and there still in perfect condition.

You said you studied fashion design, but why did you decide to go into costume and not fashion? When I left college I realised I hated the fashion business, it was really cut-throat and I really didn’t like it. Not to keen on all those fashion PRs either. Costume Designer’s bring creativity in a different way, and often tend to be nicer people, I know that’s a mass generalisation, but it tends to be true. I started making clothes for a lot of pop groups, who werent size 6 so couldn’t have press samples. Costume is a much more collaborative affair, it’s not just “Put that on and shut up”or the Designer saying “That is the look for this season”. In fashion I got bored of seeing all these beautiful men and women, I was yearning to talk to somebody interesting. It was the garments that were exciting to me, not the fashion business. Then I wiggled into costume, which has funded my shoe collection ever since.

What does your shoe collection mean to you now? It’s almost an identity thing, when I start a new job people say “That’s Geoff, he’s the Costume Designer, you’ll get to know him, he’s the one with the shoes”. My shoes make me readily identifiable. Being in the creative industry I feel that you strive to be a little bit different. I don’t want to be one of those hipsters with a square beard, slightly short trousers and a little parka.

Do you think growing up in 80s London influenced your attitude to fashion?In the 80s nobody wanted to be like everybody else. You went out with a whole mess of dif-ferent people and because we dressed extraordinarily everyone invited us to their nightclubs.

Do you buy more shoes online or shopping? Shopping, if I can’t find it shopping I will go online, but being a Costume Designer I’m always shopping. We were filming in Poland earlier this year and I saw these cobalt blue suede shoes in a shoe shop but then we went off to another location so I didn’t get a chance to explore that shoe shop, so near but yet so far! it’s a sad life!

What’s programme or film have you most enjoyed working on? Sometimes the job is hell but lovely people and vice-versa so it varies. I tend to do mainly comedies, I like jazz hands and some sequins! I did musicals recently for The BBC Proms, we did My Fair Lady that was an amazing process to be a part of because it’s live!

Nowadays you have your little clique and stick to it, it’s a bit sad. But I try to carry on the spirit, I don’t care if anyone thinks I look silly.

When you’re creating a character’s look how important are the shoes? A lot of actors tell you that the shoes make the costume, it’s crucial for movement and different shoes give you a dif-ferent stance. It helps them to find their character. We often get the shoe sorted and then everything else will fall into place. We had a brief recently and this character was basical-ly “Marbella” and she had these towering heels that she didn’t wear apart from the ‘look how fabulous I’m looking coming out of a car’ take. Obviously we couldn’t have her if flip flops! So not Marbella! Actor’s say to me “I don’t feel right in this” I say “You don’t feel right, or you character doesn’t feel right?” sometimes it’s hard for them to divorced the two.

Has being a costume designer fuelled your love for shoes? No it’s having a design eye. The eye informs everything, you think in a slightly different way. From putting pictures up to choosing things for your room, if you have a design eye you will pick out things that are a little bitquirkier, less mainstream. You don’t want to look like the seven other people dressed the same on the high street.

What has been your latest shoe purchase? A pair of black ankle boots with a patent leather heel, where the upper meets the sole there is a little zip, it’s very subtle but they’ve got something a little bit quirky about them, they make you stop and look, people look again and go “oooh that’s nice!” It’s all part of being a creative, to want to look at things, going to exhibitions, just wanting to see, explore and enjoy things.

Would you say you have a favourite pair or is that a silly question? Silly question! It depends on the day or even the hour. There are some which have special memories, sometimes I just need colour, other times I need comfort or I just chose a pair that look good with the clothes I have clean.

Do you have any brands that are your go to? Diesel and Dsquared, but it’s usually it’s just about whether the aesthetic appeals to me. Sometimes I think I really need a…. and I go look for it. I really wanted a suede pair of camo boots and thank god after looking for about a year I found a pair in TK Max a Ted Baker pair - purchased immediatey!Another time I wanted a purple pair, Cadbury’s purple, If I have an idea in my head I will go searching for it.

“I don’t want to be one of those hipsters with a square beard, slightly short trousers and a little parka”

)

)

Iris is back, and as per she’s got a lot more to say...

People hired me to design their houses because they liked the way that I could throw myself together, that if I could manage to make myself attractive then I should be able to do the same

for a room. To achieve this I spent three months of each year in the early 50s traveling the world to find offbeat classic period textile designs. It’s the prices I like, so more much than the enjoyment of having it. I’m cheap, so cheap in fact that I never wanted a wedding, I would’ve

rather of had the money.

I get more out of chunky wooden bangles that cost $4, than if my husband took me to Harry Winston’s the luxury jeweller. To market to market to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, dancing a jig. I’m a firm believer that you have to know when and where to haggle. You do a disservice to the merchant to give him what he he asked for it, if you give him $50 then

you’ve ruined his day because he thinks you’re stupid, it’s part of the game.

I never had a sugar daddy waiting in the wings, so I redoubled my efforts to look and experiment. One of my clients was obsessed with showing me her wrist watch collection, I would ask her to tell me the time and she would say “It’s 5 diamonds past 8 rubies!” It was then that I realised that money couldn’t buy good taste, that the money you spend doesn’t determine the success of your outfit!

However hard I haggle, I continue to believe that you never really own anything in this life. You’re only renting, so sometimes it’s nicer to see where it’s going than to not know who gets it. Recently I’ve been clearing out my collection, which feels to me like the end of an era, but i’d rather they brightened up someone else’s day and frankly I could do with a few more shekels.

I learnt a long time ago that you can’t have everything. Carl and I never wanted children because we wanted careers and wanted to travel. I was an only child, and my Mother used to work a lot, I felt abandoned, I didn’t want my child to be raised by a nanny.

I compromise on some things but never on others. I could never be a friend of some-body who wasn’t curious and didn’t have a sense of humour, I thinks those were the two great gifts I was given.

Sometimes I look like a railroad man, the perfect attire for Monday which is “Relax in Slacks” night in order to prepare for the rest of the week, where dress up is a de rigueur! Denim aside I admire glamour, Pauline de Roth-schild’s style I am rather taken with, she was bold, gutsy and chic chic chic!

I will never comment on how other people dress, because if they’re happy then that’s fine, it’s more important to be happy than well dressed. Saying that, frankly the women on the best dressed list make me yawn.Colour is important, it can raise the dead.and if you’ve got good shoes on and your hair’s done properly, then you can get away with anything.

Comfort is not the priority, I like big and bold and lots of pizzazz!. Just like the bracelets I brought in Tibet, I can only wear them when I know I’m com-ing home in the next half an hour. But there’s pleasure in the pain. It’s not about going to the party it’s about get-ting ready for the party, there’s more truth in poetry in that. When it comes to accessories, some say “take one off” but I say add more on.

Aside from my accessories addiction, caviar is my drug of choice.

Regardless of the where you are, if you hang around long enough everything comes back in style. One day Mrs. Loehmam said to me, “You’re certainly no beauty but you

have something much better, you have style” Style is attitude, attitude, attitude. It’s elusive, exclusive, ephemeral. therein lies its magic. It’s impossible to define, it’s like charisma, you know it when you see it.Which is why not too many

possess it. Unlike fashion it cannot be brought. Imaginative, one of a kind, it differs from individual to individual. It’s an offshoot of personality, it’s concerned with

real life, not just high fashion. Everybody is so lost these days, all this sameness, everything is so marginalized I hate it. During the depression days, my Mother used

to say, buy a little black dress, you can dress it up, you can dress it down, you will always have something to wear. I then rebelled and became a denim freak, who

drove the male staff at the Army and Navy store banannas! they used to say to me, don’t you know ladies don’t wear jeans!

However I’ve never felt pretty, I don’t feel pretty now, I’m not a pretty person. I don’t like pretty. Those who aren’t blessed with being pretty have to learn something. That way you become a bit more interesting, when you get older you get by on that. Despite my 95 years, I continue to keep myself busy because otherwise I

get depressed. You’ve gotta have fun otherwise you may as well be dead.

I like being in the world and of the world, everybody has to do it in his or her way. As you age it’s very important to keep doing things.

I do charity work, I do programmes for students, I do talks, I do museums shows, things that benefit people. If God is good to you

you have to give back.

You have to think positively and not curl up in a ball because your ageing, I think it’s a blessing when you age. As a part

time style lecturer, the only thing I finds hard is making some-one look kooky and sophisticated at the same time, I’m bored of all these journalists asking me about all these rules, I say I don’t have rules as I’d only be breaking them. What I’m also

really bored of answering is ‘how do you plan your outfit?’ If I did that I’ll think I’d kill myself,

I’m always in a hurry.

I like to improvise, I like to do things as if I’m playing jazz.

Getting Dressed Or Playing Jazz?

“With fashion I like to improvise, I like to do things as if I’m playing jazz”

Sophistication is achieved with slight variations, it can transform an ordinary emotion felt by all of us into a concrete feeling. It can often make you smile, when there is nothing to smile about. Your anonymous voice is distinguished by a skill or trick and you’re suddenly recognized as a unique individual. Some use the most obvious tricks in order to arouse hysteria amongst the choir but the people who leave a lasting impression, are the ones that push the boundaries by exploring the obscure.

Enveloped by colour, passion and rhythm, the outside world can get lost in the back-drop because what’s important is the dialogue that you’ve created. A dialogue that thrives on self experimentation, one that’s most coherent when something jumps out of place. The success of it evolves through what’s composed around it, within itself but also in comparison to what others have created beside it.

Believing that the previous generation were primitive in the way they constructed is a common asumption. The nature of the cycle shows us that it’s cylical, it progresses forward only to return from whence it began.

Where one style ends another begins. The arrival of new styles does not mean a disap-pearance of the old. You borrow a piece of each in order to build your own construction. I say ‘borrow’ but it’s hard to distinguish who really owns it. Professionals prefer being known for the construction itself rather than the dangling dollar bills and the camera flashes that often accompany it.

Those who made the rule book showcase their ideas, making styles accessible regardless of how deep you desire to delve. There are elements integral to success, but the process gives you the freedom to analyse the rule book, turn it upside down, rearrange the pages and stick it back together.