SALEM — Three years ago, Peabody Essex Museum trustee Carla Herwitz saw an exhibit in Florida that she thought would be perfect for Salem. Herwitz was so excited she called PEM Executive Director Dan Monroe, who flew to West Palm Beach to see for himself.
With a little cajoling, Monroe persuaded the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the exhibition originator, to allow it to make one final, unscheduled stop here.
Thus was born the PEM appearance of "Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel," the smash show that closes Sunday. In less than four months, an estimated 70,000 visitors will have stepped through the doors, making it one of the museum's biggest successes in recent years.
It was a hit few saw coming.
"I had suspected the show would do well," said Jay Finney, chief marketing officer at PEM, "but nothing on the order of magnitude it has."
Although not approaching the numbers of "Painting Summer in New England," a 2006 blockbuster, the Iris Apfel exhibit ranks fourth in attendance since PEM reopened in 2003 after a major expansion.
Apfel, for the uninitiated, is not a designer, but an 88-year-old fashion icon from New York who became a legend by combining the improbable — haute couture and flea-market specials. This traveling exhibit, she once said, was a peek inside her closet.
The show took on a life of its own, PEM officials said, spreading as much by word-of-mouth as by promotion. It was the experience of actually seeing Apfel's outrageously magnificent outfits, they said, that brought museumgoers back.
"This was more spectacle" than fashion show, Finney said.
Soon, the audience started imitating the artist. Teenage girls were showing up in wild costumes. Even a few men let it fly.
"Some guys would come in with the wildest, wackiest blazers," Finney said. "I'd say, 'Is this the first time you've been able to wear that?' They'd say, 'Absolutely.'"
Attendance also got a boost from special programming, including visits from famed designer Isaac Mizrahi and from Michael Vollbracht, the former creative designer for Bill Blass.
This show opened in October, usually the worst time to launch an exhibit in Salem, when most visitors are here for Haunted Happenings. But the timing also may have helped, providing visitors a counterpoint to the bad economic times outside.
"The news has been so grim," said April Swieconek, a PEM spokeswoman. "And this was a little bit of frivolity."
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