A fine spectacle

Yes, she explains, those are real insects floating in layers of resin and set into bracelets. That multicolored necklace is made of 1930s Bakelite chips that a salesman once used. Designer names are dropped in rapid succession along with stories about incredible flea market finds and close friendships that were formed over James Galanos eveningwear and frantic rack digging at Loehmann’s.

“We’ve been styling it this week,’’ Apfel says looking over the mannequins, some of which are not only wearing her clothes, but also her trademark saucer-size glasses. “We don’t want them to look like mannequins. We want them to look alive, like they’re having conversations. You see over there - those two are being catty.’’

Apfel - who was once perfectly described as a “geriatric glamazon’’ - is north of Boston putting final touches on the show “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,’’ which opens at the Peabody Essex Museum on Oct. 17. More than 50 years’ worth of her well-curated wardrobe, ranging from couture pieces purchased in Paris to $5 costume jewelry from junk stores, will fill multiple galleries and highlight the style doyenne’s extraordinary eye. She is clearly having a moment - and loving it. “Rare Bird’’ was a surprise hit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Apfel, once regarded as simply an eccentric with a love of daring prints and accessories, is now being recognized as a fashion trailblazer.

“You can see what I’ve spent all my money on,’’ her husband, Carl, jokes as his wife points out a stunning velvet Koos van der Akker evening coat.

Shows about fashion have been increasing in frequency in the Boston area, but Apfel is not a fashion designer. She is, however, a world-class shopper. She readily confesses that it’s not about how much you spend, but what you dig up.

This show is strictly about a New York woman who, for the past 70 years, has possessed an uncanny skill for putting together Nina Ricci dresses with tag sale brooches or pairing African beads with a Bill Blass jacket - and making it look perfectly fabulous. She started mixing high end and low end decades before it was the norm. Her natural flair for styling bold ensembles has inspired designers from Jason Wu to Isaac Mizrahi.

“Her creation of her image is just as artistic as any of the individual haute couture pieces from her wardrobe,’’ says Harold Koda, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the show originated in 2005. “It’s art in the sense that her materials are from this incredible collection she has amassed, and she uses them the way a painter uses paint.’’

Apfel grew up in Depression-era Astoria, Queens, the daughter of a meticulously coiffed and shrewd businesswoman and a father who specialized in glass and mirror installation for tony interior designers. She easily recalls her early forays into fashion and her gift for shopping.

After college she worked at the trade publication Women’s Wear Daily and enjoyed a stint as Girl Friday to Robert Goodman, a leading men’s illustrator, at Saks Fifth Avenue. While she eventually left her champagne-soaked fashion life for interior design, she never lost her taste - or her flair - for style.

Apfel’s show took a circuitous route to the Peabody Essex. It started at the Met, headed south to the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Fla., then went back to New York to show at the Nassau County Museum of Art on Long Island. It was in Palm Beach that Dan Monroe, Peabody Essex executive director, saw the show and decided that it would be ideal for his museum. Although fashion is not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of the PEM, he saw parallels between Apfel’s diverse and international ensembles and his museum’s own eclectic offerings.

“This show really spans all kinds of different audiences. She’s an octogenarian, and a lot of her collection is vintage, which has a lot of currency in our core older audience,’’ says PEM chief marketing officer Jay Finney. “And because it’s fashion, it also speaks to a younger audience. She’s really perfect for this place in many ways.’’

Apfel, co-owner of the textile house Old World Weavers with her husband, is quick to point out that her intention was never to gather a collection of clothes for a museum. For her, purchasing clothing was always about the thrill of the hunt.

“I like to creep around and dig,’’ she explains over tea after the gallery tour. “It’s no fun to just sit in a shop and have people present you with things. It was the process. It’s not that I’m so mad about clothes. It’s about finding things and putting them together. That’s the fun.’’

She says her two biggest gifts are her sense of humor and her curiosity, and both allowed her to acquire the unique jewelry and clothing that spills out of rooms and closets at her home. Koda, who has been friends with Apfel for the past 20 years, says opening one of her closets is akin to opening a jack-in-the-box. The only difference is that an exquisite Lanvin taffeta skirt pops out instead of a toy clown.

At 88, she is still bustling with energy. During New York Fashion Week last month, this writer was supposed to meet up with her to attend fashion shows. Instead, I ended up exhausted and sick in bed, clinging to a pillow with a high fever. Apfel, on the other hand, was ready to hit the town and was ringing me from her cellphone wondering which shows I wanted to attend with her.

She makes it clear during the interview that she’s never been interested in following the fashion pack. Because she is model size, she has snapped up runway samples of couture clothing, but she bought it based on silhouettes and colors rather than trends. She recounts a story about the time she visited a hairdresser who was New York’s stylist of the moment. But she noticed as she waited for her appointment that all the women left the salon looking like “a 60-year-old Shirley Temple.’’

“I didn’t want to look like that, so I told him to make me look worse,’’ she says, laughing. “And he succeeded. I looked worse. But at least I didn’t look like Shirley Temple.’’

Always a showstopper in the New York scene, it was only within the past few years that her unique style has been applauded.

“Before then, people thought of her as a crazy lady,’’ says Mizrahi. “They thought of Iris as a nut. I never thought she was a nut. I thought she had a great eye and was amazing.’’

While Apfel’s style is uniquely her own, she has heard from many women who leave the exhibit feeling inspired to make some daring fashion choices of their own. Even Lindsay Lohan contacted Apfel to purchase clothing and employ her styling services. (Apfel politely declined.)

“I’ve gotten stacks of letters,’’ she says. “They have told me that my show has shown them the light. They tell me I have inspired them, liberated them, and even changed their lives. They say I’ve shown them how to express themselves without being afraid. It’s more than I could have ever hoped for.’’

For details on Apfel’s ensembles, go to www.boston.com/fashion. RARE BIRD OF FASHION: The Irreverent Iris Apfel Opens Oct. 17 at the Peabody Essex Museum and continues through Feb. 7. 978-745-9500 or 866-745-1876, www.pem.org