Twenty Years of Anna Sui The Collaging Resourcefulness of Fashion’s Indie Idol

    Mixtapes, made prolific when ‘70s hip-hop emerged as a dominant musical genre, have long been recognized as underground ensembles of expression. The idea of a mixtape wouldn’t readily describe a fashion designer. Still, no other single word seems to appropriately describe designer Anna Sui’s work since she launched her label in 1991. In each season, Sui has concocted her collection with the arts, popular culture, and emerging music scenes. In doing so, she has created a narrative from a unique and uncompromising point-of-view, regardless of fashion’s vagaries and impermanence. 
    Guy Trebay, a fashion reporter for The New York Times, spoke on this over the phone from Miami Beach where he was attending Art Basel, “So many designers today design for the It-girls or the Upper East Side ladies, but Anna’s inspirations have always made references to underground subcultures as a base to start her collections. Very few people in fashion today are looking at subcultures.”
    Responding to the question as to whether or not there are any remaning subcultures, Trebay said, “Well, you probably have to look at the tranny hooker scene at this point. These references where she based her collections aren’t obvious to most people because she is by nature a very artistic and cultured person. She knows paintings, art, and literature. Music has been one of her main accesses to subculture. Who else would use symbolist painters or cite Aubrey Beardsley as a source for making dresses? But she has a way of amalgamating all these different influences into a cohesive collection of clothes–she always knows where to look and what to look for. Anna Sui is a pioneer of the mixtape approach to fashion design.” 
    Born in Detroit, Michigan to immigrant Chinese parents, Ms. Sui was fascinated with fashion at a very early age. She dressed her own dolls and her neighbors’ toy soldiers, then as a teenager began to collect images from fashion magazines. After graduating from high school, she moved to New York to study fashion design at Parsons School of Design. During her time at school, she met and built an enduring friendship with Steven Meisel, then an unknown illustrator and photographer. Later, she collaborated with him as a stylist for his shoots while continuing to work on her own clothes from home. 
    After departing from Parsons, and while working as a freelance designer for several junior sportswear companies like Bobbie Brooks and Glenora, Ms. Sui began to make clothes from her apartment with a bend toward vintage styles and sold them to small shops. In 1980, she sold a six-piece collection to Macy’s; one of the dresses was later featured in a Macy’s advertisement in The New York Times. She formed her own company in 1983, and four years later, moved her small collection to a showroom—Annett B—that specialized in emerging talents. Under the tutelage of the showroom’s owner, Annette Breindel, Ms. Sui concentrated on building the business that would become her ultra-feminine and accessibly priced collections.
    Anna Sui was part of the budding downtown social scene in the mid-‘80s that transformed New York City into a sweaty, grimy, fabulous place. The Mudd Club, Club 57, the Pyramid Club, and the East Village art scene may seemingly have little significance today, but in their heyday, they were the center of post-punk Manhattan’s underground music and countercultures—the city’s cultural pulse where artists mingled with transsexuals imitating the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. This brilliant scene would come to seep into her work and define her design philosophy.
    Ms. Sui staged a small runway fall show, her first, in April 1991 at the encouragement of some of her best friends, including Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell, who were then the first supermodels. It was autobiographically reminiscent of her teenage years, reading Seventeen magazine and articles on London’s Carnaby Street style in the late ‘60s. The show’s juxtaposition of colors (bright red, mustard gold, light yellow) and its materials (wool windowpane, houndstooth, vinyl, tulle, chiffon) was astounding. To add, the deployment of accessories–large gold metal chains, spats, miniature handbags, gloves in matching fabrics, and rings, brooches, and bracelets made by Erickson Beamon–sealed the collage that’s become her trademark.
    For fall ‘92, her inspiration was images of Swinging London’s Penelope Tree and Jean Shrimpton: a red velvet drape jacket with leather vest, for instance, with a shortpetal skirt and matching umbrella. She also presented a gray Donegal tweed, red-and-yellow mohair skirt suits, a navy wool long military coat with red lapels, a black leather vest, a white silk poet blouse, green print cotton pants, and a black large buckle belt complete with walking cane. 
    For spring ‘97, she turned her eyes towards West Coast hippies of 1967 from San Francisco to Laurel Canyon, and presented such items as a washed blue denim floral beaded cropped jacket, a floral cropped tank, and a violet print sarong. Other looks recalled the Southern California surfer style and included a bright red-and-white flower print strapless dress with a white-and-nude print gauze T-shirt.
    In fact, every show of every season has had a particular mixture of inspiration and a point of departure: from the Beau Brummell dandy to Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli to Alexander Girard to English Mods to, most recently, American Prairie.  No fantasy is unworthy as a source for inspirations. But most importantly, Anna has always made her memories and observations current through their painstaking processes. Often, she’ll combine several swatches of fabrics together to create new patterns, occasionally embellishing them with small embroideries here and little beadings there for a three-dimensional effect. 
    I spend the early part of the day in the basement of her Soho store. Gorgeous, gaudy pieces based on the 19th century American Arts and Crafts Movement hang from the rack, as ostentatious as they were on the runway. Ms. Sui opened this store, her first freestanding, here on Greene Street in Soho. It has housed a medley of expansions and creative visions. In 1997, Ms. Sui launched her first fragrance, Magic Window, with Wella AG of Germany, which was followed by the worldwide success of Sui Dreams in 2000. As well, she pioneered a cosmetics line with Albion of Japan and a distribution deal with Isetan. As the designer readily admits, the licensing revenues from these deals have helped to stabilize her fashion company’s finances during an era when maintaining an independent fashion business has been, to use the business term, challenging.
    “You’ve changed your hair. It’s a lot shorter?” she asks when I enter her office. 
    “Yes, men have a lot fewer choices in fashion,” I joke, laughing at the idea she would even remember, as I frequently changed my hairstyles. But the ability to observe minute details has always been one of her strengths. After some more small talk, we sat down to discuss the spontaneity of her two decades’ journey, her resourceful creativity, and the challenges of contemporary fashion design. 

What was it like growing up in Detroit as a young girl wanting to do fashion?
For me, New York was far away, London was even further away, and Paris was so far away, so everything was very special. If I would see a picture of, let’s say, Carnaby Street, it was just like the ‘be all and end all.’ I wanted to see Carnaby Street. Or, if I saw a New York designer like Geoffrey Beene—it was so important and so burnt into my memory, what they were doing. And I think that’s why I have this love of all that nostalgia, because those places were so far away when I was living in Detroit. It was something like a quest that this was what I wanted.
What made you decide to move to New York?
Well, when I was five years old, I was a flower girl at my uncle’s wedding and it was in New York. And I told my parents that when I grow up, I’m moving here. So I already knew that I was going to move to New York, and I was going to be a fashion designer. The next step was figuring out ‘how’ to do it.
And then you moved here to go to school?      
 I saw an article in Life Magazine about two young ladies who went to Parsons School of Design, and when they graduated, they moved to Paris and Elizabeth Taylor opened up a boutique for them. I thought, ‘Oh, I just have to go to Parsons School of Design.’ I remember seeing the ad for it in the back of Seventeen Magazine. I have all the files of every important fashion thing since I was a kid; I have that in a box under my bed. I went back and re-read the article and it was [about] Irving Penn’s daughter. So as a kid, you don’t understand connections, you just think, ‘Okay, there’s a magic key,’ so I thought it was Parsons.
    Kevyn Aucoin invited me to the studio when he was working with Irving Penn. They were photographing my clothes and when I met Mr. Penn I said, 'Mr. Penn, you’re responsible for me being here!' And he looked at me like, ‘What are you talking about?’ I told him the whole story and he started laughing and he said, ‘Do you know that my daughter was so arrogant that I tried to get her a job at Christian Dior, and she said, “Oh, I don’t need your help!”’ I think mine is always such an important story to tell, especially to kids, because it’s that kind of dream that takes you further than reality or practicality. That’s really what happened!
How was the experience at Parsons?  
I think I was too young to be in New York without parental supervision in the ‘70s! I had too much fun and actually after my second year, I got a job. I had to get a job because I didn’t do my homework, so I didn’t know what was going to happen in school, but I overheard two seniors talking about a job with a designer that I had read about in a lot of magazines. It was a line called Charlie’s Girls and the designer was Erika Elias. I loved what she did and I loved the ads! They were in Seventeen, Mademoiselle, and I was so excited. I put together my portfolio, went up there, and she hired me! That was probably the best thing that I could’ve done because she was known in the industry as a very tough boss. Her theory was, ‘If you’re talking, you’re not working,’ and everything that she wanted, you had to be very thorough about your research. If she wanted gingham, you had to show her every possible gingham.
Is that where you learned about really understanding details?
Yes! And sourcing! To me, design is all about sourcing and knowing how to work with your materials, especially when you’re not using the most expensive materials. If you’re using expensive cashmere, you don’t have to do much to it, but if you’re using two-dollars-a-yard denim you’ve got to figure out how to make it look good.
What made you start your first collection?
It’s another crazy story! I worked for some big companies and I had some friends—this was during the punk period—that were making rock ‘n’ roll jewelry. I thought they were so cool, and I wanted to do something similar, so I made a small collection of five pieces, and I shared a booth with them at the boutique show. I got orders from all of the department stores and I ended up with a New York Times ad and Christmas windows. The man who owned the company where I was still working saw the ad, so I got called into the office and he said, ‘How come you’re on my payroll and you have your own New York Times ad?’ I said, ‘I don’t know; it just happened!’ And he said, “Well it has to stop!” And I said, “I can’t stop. I have to ship my orders.” He said, “Then you’re fired!” So that’s how I started my own business. I had no plan and really never thought that I’d get fired. I thought that I would have a few years to maybe continue like that, so I started on a three-hundred-dollars-a-week paycheck to start my business. That’s why it took me 10 years, really, to establish myself, to build up enough confidence and finances to really be able to do a fashion show.
In the ‘90s, when your brand was growing, how were you able to compete with the other bigger brands?
That was the scary thing, because when I did the first show in 1991, it was at the height of head-to-toe Versace or Chanel. I went to the Paris shows for the first time with Steven Meisel who said, ‘Okay, after this, you have to do your own show,’ and I was saying, ‘How can I do it? It’s too expensive, I don’t have the financing, and I don’t even have the confidence to do it.’ Then a couple of things happened that season for couture. I was good friends with Linda, Naomi—all those supermodels would hang out at my house. We would all have birthday parties and dinner parties together, so I knew them socially, and they knew that I made clothes. They were wearing my dresses to the couture fittings and all of a sudden, I started getting all of these phone calls from the other supermodels: ‘Can you send me the dress that Linda was wearing? Do you have any other ones?’ And so all of a sudden, everyone was calling me for these dresses to the point where I heard Karl Lagerfield say, ‘How come everyone’s wearing this Anna? Who is this Anna?’ It just all happened at once. Then I went to the Paris Ready-To-Wear Shows with Steven and on the first stop, we picked up Madonna to go to the Gaultier show. She came out of her bedroom wearing a coat—her room was filled with racks and shopping bags from every designer in Paris. I was so jealous! Then when we got to the show she took off her coat and said, ‘Anna, I have a surprise for you.’ She was wearing my dress! I think those were the two things that really gave me the confidence to go, ‘Okay, maybe there’s something [to what] I’m doing that’s the right time, right now?’ And that’s when I did my first show.
As a business, it’s been tough.
It was very tough because I did freelance for six years in Italy and a few freelance jobs in India all during this period. So every penny that I made went right back into the company. It wasn’t until I got my licenses in Japan—and also the cosmetics and the perfumes really took off—that it really eased up. That’s what really makes the money. It’s not the clothes, but the licensed products. The clothes establish the whole feeling of the brand, and I think that’s what attracted all the licenses that I have.
How do you decide what story to tell in a collection?
Usually, it’s somewhat autobiographical. It could be something that I’m obsessed with, something that I’m so anxious to show everybody else like Days of Heaven [a film by Terrence Malick]. I thought it really kind of paralleled with the whole talk about the ecosystem and sustainable fashion—with the ‘70s when people were talking about ‘Back to the Earth’ and having natural fabrics and natural fibers, and I remembered this movie Days of Heaven that was shot outside. I went back to look at it and thought that it created such a wonderful mood. That gave me the idea to create a color palette that was very faded, sun-bleached, and almost worn-looking. I think that’s one thing that was so new to me, because I’m so known for the bright colors and flowers. But this time I did almost no flowers, just really dreamy-looking colors and fabrics. Also, when I was thinking about this whole ‘Back to the Earth’ period, I started thinking about music. I was listening to a lot of Neil Young and thinking about Laurel Canyon where all of those artists and musicians lived. I started taking books out on houses in that area and I had this big picture of Joni Mitchell’s house. In it was all the beautiful woodwork and stained glass windows, and the whole color palette, again, helped me focus more. I think if you watch the show, there are those elements in it. You have the Neil Young music, you have the Laurel Canyon feeling, and you have the Days of Heaven feeling.
Do you think there’s a lot less of the subcultures that inspire your work now?
Yes! I blame it on the Internet! I think that while watching Social Network, I got it. Here was somebody that was awkward socially and couldn’t fit in, but he figured out a way and it was to have 5,000 friends.
Prices are very important to you. Why is that?
I’ve always wanted it to be accessible; I think accessibility is so important. I think it’s really how my design sense works and my mind works. I would rather work with denim than fifty-dollars-a-yard cashmere. To me, fifty-dollars-a-yard looks beautiful with just two seams, that’s it. To me, there’s no excitement to design it that way. I love doing detail, piecing things together, and figuring out what’s going to make it even better, like adding another fabric to it or adding a different type of stitching.
Do you do most of the fabrics?
Yes! We do all of the prints and as many of the woven fabrics as possible.
    But that’s the problem nowadays: a lot of the companies are gone and that’s what saddens me when I look through my book. All of those beautiful wools and mohair that I used in the beginning were made here in this country. Even production from France or Italy is getting smaller and smaller, and you don’t have that possibility anymore of trying something with a small amount of yardage before you place the big order. I think that’s really going to limit creativity. It’s kind of a challenge that I think this whole industry is going to go through because everything can’t be made with thousands of yards of fabric. I mean, yes, there is a company like UNIQLO that’s incredible; they’re beautiful, the prices are great, they’re very well designed, but not everything can be that.
Do you have all of your samples made here?
Yes, we have a sample room in my office and we make all of the first samples there. All of the production is done in the garment district.
Is it getting harder to have production done in the garment district?
It is, but what happened was the people that continued using those smaller factories were the local designers. I think we kept that part alive. It was the bigger companies that disappeared.
If a young designer wanted to start a business, what would you suggest?
Learn Chinese and go to China because they have state-of-the-art factories and all of the sourcing is done there. It’s getting expensive as well, and soon it’s all going to move. Maybe to Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and those kinds of countries, and I don’t know where it’s going to go after that. If India can get its act together too. They do beautiful textiles and beautiful products, but there are always problems. They have so many forces of nature like floods, things that we usually don’t think about, but that’s what happens there. What can you do? I think that’s what a design student has to learn now.
It’s always been important to you to keep the focus on what you do and not worry so much about trends.
I think you have to be true to yourself. My talent is not in doing minimal. Some people do it beautifully; it’s not what I do well. My talent is not doing menswear. I have a very feminine touch to my design. So I have to really stay true to what it is that I love, what I believe in, and that I do well, and I have a customer for that. I think that’s the thing that people have to understand–that not everybody wants just one thing. I think there has to be that variety, that selection, or the world is going to be kind of boring.