94-Year-Old Fashion Icon Iris Apfel to Design Smart Bracelets for Seniors

Iris Apfel, the 94-year-old fashion icon who is best known for her oversized glasses, wild styles, and quick wit, is now designing sophisticated smart jewelry. CNBC reports that Apfel has teamed up with the smart wearable company WiseWear to promote The Socialite Collection, their latest line of upscale activity-tracking bracelets targeted towards senior citizens.

Apfel, who was the subject of documentarian Albert Maysles’ final film, Iris (2014), and calls herself a “geriatric starlet,” believes the WiseWear bracelets (shown in the video below) can help unite fashion and healthy aging. Though the bracelets can be worn by people of any age, they were designed with older women in mind. Stylish and sophisticated, they not only track fitness and send vibrating mobile notifications, but also allow wearers to automatically send out distress text messages to a pre-set list of emergency contacts, just by tapping several times. The idea is to provide fashion-conscious older women with an emergency device they’ll actually want to wear in case of falls, injuries, and other emergencies.

"These wearables are sorely needed by seniors," Apfel told CNBC. "Many people have falls, and some of them are fatal."

But Iris also believes the WiseWear bracelets can benefit people of all ages. “This is not just technology that’s useful for elderly people,” she explained. “There are a lot of young people that can benefit as well. The Socialite bracelet can measure your activity, how active you are, and all kinds of good stuff. We don’t want any couch potatoes in the crowd.”

[h/t CNBC]