Anna Sui
Anna Sui
Anna Sui is an American fashion designer. She was named one of the "Top 5 Fashion Icons of the Decade" and in 2009 earned the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, joining the ranks of Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Diane von Furstenberg. Her brand categories include several fashion lines, footwear, cosmetics, fragrance, eyewear, jewelry, accessories, and a gifts line. Anna Sui products are sold through her free-standing stores...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFashion Designer
Date of Birth4 August 1964
CityDetroit, MI
CountryUnited States of America
I think about that all of the time and I have this fantasy that I am going to work at a museum someday! I would love to do something like that!
I think whenever people talk about the 'Anna Sui woman,' they're talking about someone that's probably kind of more downtown, and there's always like this ambiguity: Is she a good girl, or a bad girl?
At the point when I wanted to become a designer, I didn't think about, 'Oh, but I'm a woman,' just like didn't think about like, well, 'I'm Chinese' or that 'I'm in Michigan.' You know, none of those things were obstacles to me. I just had this idea that this is what I had to do.
Every collection that I work on, I always think, Is this cool enough to wear to a concert?
I think I'm a global citizen. My parents came from China, were educated in France and emigrated to the United States. And I think that opened up my mind to be able to live and work anywhere.
I think you have to be in the right place at the right time. And understand that and know when it is your time and how you react to it and how you respond to it.
I think that fashion has become such a big business and with globalization we are on new territory at this point. We are not just designing for a country we are designing for a world now.
The shapes are very elongated and lean. My sweaters kind of go beyond the hip. They're very, very skinny. A lot of the jackets are cardigan shapes and again, they're long and skinny.
Every season I buy a double-breasted jacket but it could be fitted, very boxy. It could be oversized. It could be forties-shaped. So I think it's my job to make it desirable and new for the customer and the customer always has to fill in that slot in their wardrobe.
I would like to home wear sheets towels people always want to buy the furniture in my store.
I was very inspired by Goth music, which was kind of this whole thing that happened in the early '80s. There were bands like the Cure, and Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but then I also kind of mixed it with Victorian Goth,
I go to flea markets every weekend if I can.
We have a lot of great vintage stores. I like shopping, in general, so I can simply go to a drugstore and shop.
When I was starting, there were wool mills in the U.S. that could make you anything. The U.S. used to produce the most beautiful cotton denim in the world. Now all that is gone.