It takes a designer as committed to her own point of view as Anna Sui to make you see the same-ification that has befallen so much of modern fashion. On day three of New York, the shows start to blend together in the mind. It’s tempting to ascribe Sui’s uniqueness to the wisdom of experience—she’s been designing for over 30 years and is the subject of an exhibition opening in April at the Phoenix Art Museum—but it has ever been thus with her.
On a visit to her office ahead of today’s show Sui mentioned she’d been watching the screwball comedies of the 1930s to counterbalance the current state of things—by this she meant the state of America and the world, but she might as well have been talking about the industry. Bringing Up Baby is her all-time favorite; and the movie’s pet leopard gave her a reason to do the collection’s animal spot shoes. From Katharine Hepburn’s iconic portrayal of a madcap heiress it was a hop, skip, and jump to the real-life heiresses of the period: Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, and Peggy Guggenheim, who had style coming out of their eyeballs.
Fashion lovers of a certain vintage will be able to discern the 1930s lines of a floral lamé tea dress and the Fortuny-ish pleats of a copper top and skirt set. Gen Z fans who troll thrift stores and resale sites for circa 1990s Anna Sui baby tees are more likely to respond to the layered way Sui mixes and matches. In fact, she said she styled these looks much the way she sees young people incorporating vintage finds into their personal wardrobes: never head-to-toe, but rather by adding trophy pieces to the hodgepodge mix.
Layering was key to this collection’s kaleidoscopic appeal: fluoro fair isle with green lace, lamé brocade with micro-stripes, zigzag tweed with wallpaper florals, and leopard print with just about everything—many of the looks accessorized by estate-style jewelry made by Sui’s longtime friend Karen Erickson of Erickson Beamon and fabulous Peggy G. shades. Nothing samey here, that’s for sure.