They will say that it is not elegant or politebut Piru Urquijo’s age is essential to understand that this lady’s style, in terms of style, is from another galaxy. For being ahead of trends, for being risky, for being intrepid, for being avant gardefor being non-conformist, for being elegant outside the norm and for being, above all, a fashion icon almost-almost newly discovered when it is already 90 years old. Because Do you remember Iris Apfel? From the famous queen of Fith Avenue, with her huge round glasses and her impressive ‘looks’ in which she combined flea market jewelry with goldwork and Balinese jaspers, haute couture and feather or Afghan goat skin coats?
Well, Piru achieves strictly the same thing but without resorting to myopia, the bizarre, the disruptive or the impossible to deviate from the rule. She doesn’t do that. Piru never borders on caricature. But neither is the extravagant or the irreverent. And yet, its impact, daring and casual in the use of color and accessories, make it a rare—and beautiful—bird. From high society and not only. And from the salon catwalk and, (point out) from the street fashion.
Because the other thing, ‘standing out’ at whatever price is not in their compass. Not even in his thoughts. And far from it, it is part of its intention when addressing a outfit. Your closet is not a infinity of taxable partsbut rather responds to essentials of quality and design that could be shared with other Ladies as God intended. His art is in the choice and the combination. Hence, his courage and the importance of the risk he undertakes. She doesn’t need a cape of golden-tipped duck feathers and Yves Saint Laurent boots in fuchsi satinto up to the thigh just like Iris did and which, on the other hand, was natural to her essence, uninhibited and unprejudiced. We would say that Piru does more with less fanfare. with some two-tone chane shoesl and a look in the same tones it’s an explosion chic in the coldness of Madrid’s gray granite streets. Impossible to go unnoticed. Especially in these times when elegance – and ‘finesse’ – have been confused with chocolate brown.
Write this down: If fashion is attitude, Piru Urquijo’s is much more interesting than 99% of the influencers 20 years (or more).
Like Iris, Piru is very thin, with a small structure, and almost fragile, but with each of her looks she manages to have, like the American, an imposing presence. However, unlike the New York matron, she has not chosen a single hairdresser sparse or a snowy color like cotton for your hair, for example. She, very Madrid styleprefers fluffy hair. Sorry, extra fluffy (way above what, according to the rule of proportions, should correspond to it); hollow, but not compact; and with a light reddish brown tone, fictitiously flattering like that of the great divas of the scene, because that tone, under cold or warm lights, always flatters the skin. Another aspect that would be delicate to discuss in another woman, but that Piru addresses with sublime tricks. It’s a yes to makeup. Which means yes to coloranda yes to the pearly eyeshadow and a yes to lipstick. Everything is a yes, but with a slight dusting.
This week, we saw her again in the glossy pages of HELLO! like a epitome of “alternative” elegancebut possible. We tell them. Alternative not because she is not dressed according to her age, or with strange clothes or from emerging designer brands that need society to adapt to their new aesthetics or with shapes and colors that do not flatter. At all. Everything it takes is possible. A Chanel in the strict sense (and you don’t have to go to the Maison de Rue de Cambon to get it, you know, to achieve the effect) “piano key white” and black. Tailor skinny, maglione and a multi-strand necklace, like those worn by the queen of the double tweed…But that same outfitin another lady, forgive the ordinariness, but it would look the same as “one Christ, two pistols.” Not her. She has a charme unique, from another time. When, furthermore, it is capable of being rabidly current: Two ties coquette to collect the maxi sleeves? Central African-inspired maxi bracelets on mini dolls? Piru, you are a lot.
© STUDIO24But this is not a unicum. Every Piru outing is a daydream. And no, she doesn’t take selfies—although she should—nor Get ready with me —that also— to take the photo and now, Teresita Urquijo’s paternal grandmother, manages to snatch the spotlight from other women much younger or -more exposed- than her, without her proposing it and without the photographer intellectualizing the why either. We already tell you a reason: its uniqueness and specificity. Because with the 90s flying over her crowned head, she maintains that halo of the Great Lady of the Big Apple (or the central almond) intact. Or what was the same, of a great woman behind a great man (when they were several steps ahead) whose mission was to make him even more powerful, also for the benefit of Spain. A swan, in the style of Marella Agnelli (okay, she was a princess) with whom Capote would also have fallen head over heels in love because, furthermore, due to history and nobility, Piru’s thing went far beyond the avatars of CBS or Malt beer.
With Jaime Urquijo, as vice president of Tabacalera, Piru made countless trips and from them, like Iris did, he became culturally impregnated and filled his dressing room. Hence his forays with patchwork, like the Yves Saint Laurent from the “Dreams of the Orient” collection, which he wore in Los Molinillos at a family celebration that, for some reason, is one of the few Spanish people who buy “Haute Couture”. Because she is a great lover of orientalism/ethnicism, as we were also aware of at her granddaughter’s wedding with the mayor of Madrid, with an important coat like the ones the great Fortuny sewed with Venetian damasks, also very much in the style of his little bullfighters from La GarÇonne. , which combines with Russian amber necklaces.
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© EUROPA PRESSLet’s see, it’s not that he has given it to the combination of patternssomething that Karl Lagerfeld criticized so much, but also opts for something so trend like him color block. Remember the uploaded coral “total look”with a pencil skirt and in wild silk, from the wedding of the Dukes of Huéscar and no, there is nothing else luxury silent…. Now, Piru is not fancy with adjectives. It’s luxury, end. And if it is with alaracas, then better. Both she and Iris never understood that less is more. More is always more. Hence, their waste of furs and accessories. Bakelite bracelets, red fox-trimmed capes, Japanese silks with Kyoto prints and, why not, a transparent maxi cap in the style Courreges to protect your carding from inclement weather.
In 2005, Apfel had her own exhibition at the Met, titled ‘Rara Avis’, a journey through her life and legacy (very irreverent by the way) that brought together 83 outfits and more than 300 accessories that even included a suit. travel with print of tiger designed by herself: a Mongolian lamb and squirrel coat for Fendi displayed on a mannequin crawling from an igloo.
“This is not a collection,” Apfel said at the time. “It’s an assault on my closet”. From here we make two requests: to the Costume Museum and to Piru herself, that dressing room is crying out for an anthology.