Andrew Bolton - Anna Sui

ANNA

SUI

BY ANDREW BOLTON

PREFACE BY JACK WHITE | FOREWORD BY ANNA SUI

INTRODUCTION BY STEVEN MEISEL

Text copyright 2010 by Andrew Bolton. Preface copyright 2010 by Jack White. Foreword copyright 2010 by Anna Sui. Introduction copyright 2010 by Steven Meisel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

All photographs in Anna Sui are copyright the individual photographers and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the photographer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Bolton, Andrew, 1966

Anna Sui / Andrew Bolton ; preface by Jack White ; foreword by Anna Sui ; introduction by Steven Meisel

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8118-6810-5

1. Sui, Anna. 2. Women fashion designersNew York (State)New YorkBiography. I. Title.

TT505.S943B65 2010

746.9'2092dc22

[B]

2009041603

Manufactured in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, California 94107

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by Jack White

by Anna Sui

by Steven Meisel

Anna Sui. Vogue Italia . October 1992. Photograph by Steven Meisel.

BY JACK WHITE

Anna and I have similar backgrounds. We are both from Detroit, Michigan. We are both obsessed with the beauty of music and its ability to inspire. And we are both influenced by different eras. Annas work, however, transcends eras. She is an artist who is era-less.

As fashion marches on, there are pinnacles of beauty so undeniably profound that they defy being dated or entombed. These pinnacles inspire the next fashion but they never disappear. Anna looks to these pinnacles, not for emulation but for inspiration. From them, she is able to create new pinnacles of beauty.

Sometimes, I will hear a performer sing something incredible that I have not heard before. I ask them, Is that an old song I dont know? Usually, they respond, No, I wrote it myself. In the same way, I am often guilty of asking my wife, model Karen Elson, Which vintage shop did you find that dress? Its so beautiful. Usually, she responds, Its an Anna Sui dress.

That to me is timelessness. It is not retro or emulation or re-creation or even false modernity. It is a beauty that can exist in any erapast, present, or futurea beauty that does not fall prey to the wrath of novelty. That is the beauty that Anna creates. Her fashions, fragrances, and boutiques live in their own time. They look, smell, and feel powerful and beautiful, with no era imprisoning them.

Madonna. MODA . March 1991. Photograph by Herb Ritts.

BY ANNA SUI

Im told that as early as four years old, I talked about becoming a fashion designer. But my first vivid memory of wanting to be a designer was triggered by an article in Life magazine about two girls who, on graduating from Parsons School of Design in New York, moved to Paris where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton opened a boutique for them. I thought Id found the magic key. I thought to myself, All I have to do is move to New York and go to Parsons, both of which I did. Years later when I re-read the article, I realized that one of the girls fathers was Irving Penn, the legendary photographer, which might have given her some advantages. As a child, you dont understand those connections.

I recall even more vividly the moment when I decided to present my first runway collection. It was in the fall of 1990 and I was in Paris to see the fashion shows with Steven Meisel. On the way to the Gaultier show, we stopped at the Ritz to pick up Madonna. Her suite was filled with bags and racks of clothes from all the French designers. She came out wearing a coat, and it wasnt until we were seated at the show that she said, Anna, I have a surprise for you. She took off her coat and she was wearing my black babydoll dress. It was the first in a chain of events that gave me the confidence to stage my own fashion show. Madonna could have chosen a dress from any of the top designers at the time, but she chose to wear one of mine.

I found my own magic key in my friendship with Steven Meisel, Paul Cavaco, Bill Mullen, Tim Sheaffer, Louie Chaban, Jimmy Paul, Garren, Pat McGrath, Franois Nars, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Michael Economy, James Coviello, and Karen and Eric Erickson. They have all supported me over the years through their love and kindness. As have my amazing staff, especially Thomas Miller, and my partners at P&G, Albion, Isetan, KCD, and Ballin. Ive been lucky in the fact that my customers, like my friends and colleagues, have been very loyal to me over the years. Like my idols (including Jack White), they continually inspire me. But I owe my greatest debt to my family, especially my parents, Paul and Grace Sui, who gave me the courage and determination to live my dream.

Anna Sui. Advertisement for Cento x Cento. Vogue. September 1994. Photograph by Steven Meisel.

BY STEVEN MEISEL

My first vivid memory of Anna was seeing her standing outside a club in Manhattan. She was wearing a dress by Zandra Rhodes. Or was it Norma Kamali? Or Ossie Clark? Back then Anna wore only designer clothes. That was the thing about Anna. Most other club kids wore knockoffs, but not Anna. Everything about Anna was extreme. Her hair. Her makeup. She used to wear shoes with the highest heel or the highest platform. And her handbags. God, her handbags. Whether she was dressed as a punk or a goth, shed always have her handbag. I called it her pocketbook because she would carry it like women did back in the 1950swith the handle in the crook of her arm, and with her arm held up high.

Anna has always had a very ladylike side. As a kid, everything had to matchher shoes, her gloves, and, of course, her pocketbook. I remember seeing photographs of her growing up in Detroit. Her clothes were very preppy. Back then, preppy was considered cool. I hate that word, but you know what I meanpopular. You see her riffing on the preppy look in her collections. But you often see Annas own style in her work. Not just her preppy phase. You see her punk phase, her goth phase, her Mudd Club phase. You see Annas life when you see her clothing. You also see her loves, her passions. Like Biba, Ossie Clark, Anita Pallenberg, the Ormsby-Gore girls, all the English eccentrics. Everything that she loves and everything that she has become. Its all there.

Anna has always loved Europe. To me, she seems more like a European than an American designer. Like many European designers, she likes to tell stories through her clothes. Take John Galliano, for instance. John can go on and on about Cleopatra or Joan of Arc or any other woman from history. He creates fantasies of women based on books, poems, and paintings. Annas just the same. She has a romantic idea about a person and plays it out in her collections. But Annas not all about romance. Shes very pragmatic, too. Shes aware of her customer and of keeping her clothes in the right price bracket. I mean if Anna were allowed an atelier with forty assistants and every fabric on the planet to choose from, then God knows what shed create. But she respects the restrictions of selling to a younger market. Despite the staffing and monetary limitations of her business, however, Annas out there with the best of them, with the Gallianos of the world.