「我倒也不是很政治化，但是，想想這些時事所帶來的失望感覺，我決定放上與我夢想中的美國有關的元素。因此，系列裡有牛仔和啦啦隊元素，有阿米什人風格；紅白藍混合在一起，出現在各種造型中。我不斷在做著這樣的設計，這源於我一直夢想著、幻想著的東西，不過也受了近來時事的影響，所以，最後就變成了我腦海中各種想法的混合產物。」
Iwent to see 「The World of Anna Sui」 at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London’s Bermondsey district. The intensely colourful clothes, the intriguing themes, and the curatorship of Dennis Nothdruft made a lively show – and that was before the equally colourful American-based designer started talking.
This could have been an interview. But I was so mesmerised by Anna’s explanations of each display – from Punk to Surfer, Rock Star to Grunge – including 「lion」 hats, jewellery, and make-up, that instead I’m sharing her own words.
Anna Sui’s Museum Tour
「In the entryway of the show, this red, black, and white outfit is quintessential Anna Sui.
「In fact, in Japan we held a vote in one of the popular magazines and readers chose this as the number one dress. It has all the elements: the roses, the black and white with red. When I was working on this collection, I had gone to see my friend Sofia Coppola filming Marie Antoinette. I also went on a vacation to Turkey and in the museum for sailors [the Istanbul Naval Museum] there was a whole section about Barbarossa the pirate. What tied it all together was the Topkapi Palace and its harem room; it was during the same period as Marie Antoinette so I thought, 「Okay, it all really meshes together.」
「One of my favourite bands ever is the New York Dolls, so I had pictures of them on the wall as well as Marie Antoinette and the pirate. The dress code back in those days was black and white or red – you could wear roses, you could wear stripes, and there’s the fishnet to evoke the Punk movement. So all of that was in one outfit. That’s the way my brain works when I’m working on a collection!」
Jamie Bochert models the final look from Anna Sui's Autumn/Winter 2015 collection, inspired by the History Channel's Vikings series
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「I grew up in Middle America in the suburbs, so I dosed on Americana and it’s a little tongue-in-cheek – the same way Wes Anderson did in The Royal Tenenbaums. So you can see there’s kind of a similarity: the sweatbands, the sports motifs, but done in a very colour-coordinated way.」
「The dress was inspired by the Andy Warhol collages that he made with Dresden paper, so we actually took Dresden paper and had it laser-cut into leather for the shoes and the handbag. Then we simulated it in the embroidery and then the sportswear fabric. The herringbone is then decorated, almost like putting Dresden paper on top of it. You know, Dresden paper is like what they use to make gold doilies.」
「I was transporting myself and my audience to different time periods, to things that I read and fantasised about.」
Kristen McMenamy modelling Anna Sui's Spring/Summer 1993 "Grunge"-inspired collection
「During the Grunge phase, I had seen a lot of concerts and just loved the fact that it was breaking down the whole of the music industry at that point. It was what I felt was going on with New York fashion – that it had gone through this whole power-dressing period and suddenly there had to be a break.」
A signature waistcoat-and-shorts androgynous look by Anna Sui
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「The same thing happened with music. There were rock concerts with thousands of people, and suddenly in small-town Seattle there was this incredible music movement. I think that this collection really captured that moment. There’s that whole vintage feeling, with Kurt Cobain wearing vintage dresses. So for this collection in the androgyny section, we did a guy and girl in matching baby-doll dresses, and a combination of Army surplus mixed with rainbow striping and a flower-power dress. I guess I like the mixture of Doc Martens, which everyone was wearing at that point, and the famous moment of that show: baby dolls.」
The Anna Sui Spring/Summer 1994 collection was inspired by girls in grunge bands so, from left, she put Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista in baby-doll dresses
Raoul Gatchelian, 1994
「Linda, Christy, and Naomi were in my show and it was very spontaneous: they all came out in these baby-doll outfits and somehow Linda signalled to Naomi and Christy, 「Let’s stop」 and there was a moment that happened with the three most powerful supermodels.」
「My initial idea was I wanted to dress rock stars. So that’s a recurring topic and you can see that I love dandified versions of rock stars.」
Anna Sui's signature "hippy rockstar" look
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「I love the velvets, I love the ruffles and the hippie coats. Naomi Campbell wore the finale outfit for Fall 1992 and it had backless chaps. My assistant Thomas applied a tattoo butterfly on her behind. There’s a combination of faux fur, but it looks so real; there’s lots of embellishment, but I think that’s one of my favourite things – that unexpected mix of feminine and masculine put together. The Rolling Stones personified that during the 1960s. It’s just something that re-occurs all the time, especially in the menswear pieces that I do.」
「I was social friends with Naomi, Linda, and Christy and they would show up at my house head-to-toe in Versace or Chanel and I would be oohing and ahhing over everything they were wearing. Then, one summer, it changed.」
A signature Anna Sui retro Seventies look, with a black and white print inspired by the line drawings of Aubrey Beardsley
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「They only had flared jeans, a vintage top, a choker that one of the models had made, big platform shoes. I thought, 『Maybe there’s a chance for me now. Something’s changing.』 I think my kind of look attracted them and they felt suddenly there were clothes that belonged to them – not their moms. It was just a moment, and it changed fashion for a while.」
Linda Evangelista models a "Mod" houndstooth-check shorts suit by Anna Sui in the early 1990s
© Anna Sui
「Most importantly when I’m building a collection are inspiration boards that I』ve done through the years.」
Anna Sui's moodboard for Autumn/Winter 2016
© Anna Sui
「I have my design team, people who work on fabric, and they all have to be on the same message. The only way I can communicate that, without spending hours talking, is building these boards. Not only is it evoking the mood that I’m trying to have throughout the collection, but also the colour.」
The cover of The World of Anna Sui by Tim Blanks (Harry Abrams, 2017) reflects her love of vintage psychedelic poster art
© Anna Sui
「Colour is so important to me that usually I do the boards first and then we establish our colour, the prints, and colourise them to match the inspiration pictures. This collection was inspired by Antonio Lopez, one of the most amazing fashion illustrators. He had discovered really, really unique women like Jane Forth and Donna Jordan, and you can see their features throughout all of his drawings. Also, it reminds me of a period in the early 1970s when Antonio was very active; he appeared a lot in French Vogue and French Elle.」
A Punk look from Anna Sui's Spring/Summer 2013 collection
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「For this collection, I also put the punk images up on the board so when you look at the actual garments you can see there’s the fishnet here and then punk styling; a jacket with zippers but mixed with almost Third Empire and Victoriana. The shoes, again, are very Punk. I love mixing everything together and what results is something very much my signature.」
Backstage at Anna Sui's Spring/Summer 2014 show, with Seventies-inspired details such as crochet and embroidery
© Anna Sui
「You』ll see downstairs in the first gallery there’s a jacket with pictures of George Harrison wearing it – my favourite jacket ever, my favourite rock star, and I actually went on eBay and found the same William Morris fabrics.」
「I love psychedelic posters, I have a personal collection of them. They also give a feeling of the patterns that we selected for the collection and you can also see the colour stories coming from the posters.」
The Anna Sui Spring/Summer 2012 ad campaign for the Isetan Mitsukoshi department store group
© Anna Sui
「There’s a picture in the gallery by Steven Meisel where Madonna is wearing the big purple hat and she has this beautiful dress… Actually it’s the same pattern as the white dress I made but I embroidered scarves in India and chopped them up and made her a special one.」
「I always love understanding what inspired what, like the psychedelic posters. I have those Aubrey Beardsley black and white drawings downstairs… As a kid I found the poster and that changed my world. I redecorated my bedroom, I made it black and white, and I had the poster up on the wall. I saw an exhibition at the V&A a few years ago about Art Nouveau and at the end of the exhibition they talked about Aubrey Beardsley and how his art caused a resurgence of interest in Art Nouveau and inspired all these psychedelic poster artists. There was a book that came out, The World of Aubrey Beardsley, and I had the paperback and that’s how I knew his world.」
「This is part of the surfer category and was from the Tahitian-inspired collection.」
Polynesian and surfer influences combine for Anna Sui's Spring/Summer 2016 collection
Anna Sui
「My family was about to take a trip to Tahiti but I had to finish all the fabrication and inspiration for the collection before I left, so this is my fantasy of Tahiti. Again, you can see the colour story came directly from the inspiration and, of course, there’s a very tropical feel in all the patterns.」
"Tahiti" print in mulberry with feather, shell and hisbiscus motifs, Zandra Rhodes for Anna Sui, Spring/Summer 2016
© Zandra Rhodes
Gigi Hadid (left) wears the Zandra Rhodes print dress, look 57 for Spring/Summer 2016
© Anna Sui
「I had the good fortune to be able to work with Zandra Rhodes on a print. We talked on the phone and did some Skype meetings and she had gone to Tahiti before me and had a sketchbook, so there were elements in her sketchbook that we incorporated into the print that I’m wearing today.」
「And this is the latest Spring collection, 「Americana「. We went through a crazy election; every day there was that constant news of what was going on and what could be.」
A key red, white and blue look from Anna Sui's "American Pie" collection for Spring/Summer 2017
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「I’m not really political, but I think out of frustration of what was going on, I decided to put all my icons of what I dreamt America would be like and what it had been. So you have the mixture of cowboys and cheerleaders and Pennsylvania Dutch; red, white, and blue all thrown together and mixed in the styling and in all the design elements. So, you can see that I do that over and over again; it’s an inspiration from something I’m dreaming about, fantasising about, but then also current events affect it and it just becomes a mish-mash of what’s going through my brain at that period of time.」