Oui, sui! - interview with fashion designer Anna Sui - Interview

Interview, May, 1999 by Martine Sitbon

MS: Can you tell me about the fragrance?

AS: Well, as in my fashion there is a duality going on - it has a sweetness, it's very floral, but the undernotes are kind of woody or incensey. I think this gives it depth. It's like, "Is she a devil or is she an angel?" "Is she an innocent, or is she a provocateur?" It's the same kind of ambiguity I play with in my fashion.

MS: Tell me about your latest obsession.

AS: I found this book called Uzbekistan. It had everything I love, from the boots to the embroidery. I found out it's a country in Central Asia that has very old cultures. That book Meetings With Remarkable Men [by G. I. Gurdjieff, 1963] takes place there.

MS: Because you are so interested in the past, people talk about your work in retro terms. But you're Just as fascinated by today - for example, in the cool culture of kids.

AS: Well, whether it's the past or the present, all my ideas come from what's going on around me: from music, from youth culture, from street fashion. For example, when we were at the Tibetan Freedom Concert [in 1997] it suddenly hit me how I wanted the next Spring collection to look. There was the ethnic quality, mixed with a spiritual vibe. But it was also very street - athletic mixed with army surplus mixed with jeans. My process of putting together a collection is probably the same as yours - there are so many layers. You can have an initial inspiration - like for Spring '99, I did kind of a hippie collection. But [style icon] Babe Paley was in there, too. It's never just one thing.

MS: And it's always transformed. The same thing happened with your Fall '99 collection inspired by Scandinavian design.

AS: Again, I got the idea at the flea market. It seems so many people are interested in Danish Modern or that very ultramodern streamlined furniture from the early '60s, and I thought it would be a nice challenge for me.

MS: At the end of the runway for your Fall '99 show, there was a projection of Festival [1967], a film about the Newport Folk Festival.

AS: My new neighbor across the hall is Murray Lerner, the man who made that documentary. When I saw it, it just blew me away. I liked the whole feeling the time had, that everything was about to happen, that there were so many possibilities. I wanted to evoke that spirit during the show because I think we need a change like that again. Things are a little too real now.