Fashion focus: all about Anna Sui

Name of the brand: Anna Sui

Name(s ) of the designer(s): Anna Sui

About the designer(s): Anna Sui (1964) was born in Detroit, Michigan. She moved to New York to study art and design. After leaving school Anna worked for some junior sportswear companies, like Charlie’s Girls. She then started to design clothes that were sold at Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. Anna Sui is now sold all over the world and is particularly popular in Asia. She says her perfumes made her a global brand.

Start of the brand: in 1981 Anna started designing for herself.

First collection: In 1991 Anna Sui held her first fall fashion show, encouraged by her friends Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista, who were super-popular at that time.

The Anna Sui woman: loves to mix and match and is great fun

Anna Sui women: Paris Hilton, Blake Lively, Mischa Barton, Cher, Naomi Campbell, Sofia Copola, Nicole Kidman, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and Liv Tyler.

The clothes are: boho-chic,

Type of clothes: colorful, hip, rock & roll, casual/street-wear

Signature: girly, patchwork, patterns, all kind of different styles and elements combined. Anna often uses the color purple.

Collaborations: In 2009 Anna Sui collaborated with Target to produce a Gossip Girl inspired line.
Anna Sui designed cellular phones for Samsung

Awards: CFDA Lifetime achievement Award

Quotes:

‘I always had to do extra design jobs just to keep my company going for the first 10 years.’

‘There were times after I paid my employees that I didn’t even have enough money for a subway token.’

‘On the runway, I’ll do crazy styling and crazy accessories, but there’s always a beautiful dress or a great shirt underneath.’

‘I’m kind of like a show-off.’

Extra:

Anna Sui’s fashion shows always have rock music and background designs.

In 1999 Anna started her fragrance and cosmetic line. She has launched fourteen different fragrances ever since.

In 2004 Anna launched a second, more youthful clothing line, named Dolly Girl by Anna Sui.

In 2009 a children’s line was added, named Anna Sui Mini.

In 2010 Anna Sui’s collection was seen in the finale of America’s Next Top Model.

There is a Anna Sui Soho Barbie

Before Anna’s label became successful she helped out her friend Steven Meisel with the styling of his photo shoots.

The most Gaga-worthy outfits for SS2010

There’s no doubt Lady Gaga’s success has something to do with the way she dresses. From day one she has looked out of the ordinary with her structured creations, body-exposing outfits and crazy headgear. She has been wearing those extreme designer outfits no one dares to wear in public and therefore she’s always in the news…

We’ve seen Lady Gaga in Armani prive, Gareth Pugh, Jeremy Scott, Chanel and Hussein Chalayan to name a few. The pop-diva has also worn some Viktor & Rolf creations before. The Dutch designers even got to make an outfit for Gaga’s video Telephone. But apart from all those designs, we think there are many more looks that would get Lady Gaga’s approval.

Out of all the spring/summer fashion shows we selected the most Gaga-worthy outfits. Those pieces mostly have crazy shapes, they show a lot of skin and several times they go with an eye-catching headpiece.

We selected multiple black body-revealing dresses with cut-outs, wholes and tears all over them (Asish, Byblos, Julian Macdonald, Mark Fast).

We picked out over the top hats from Aguggini (large with zebra-print), Jean Paul Gaultier (blue with Napoleon shape), Givenchy (shape of a lamp shade) and Watanabe (strange kind of turban).

We chose for two designs with accentuated shoulders. At Ilincic the shoulders were huge and made out of feathers, at Todd Lynn they resembled shark fins.

The opted for the Giles dress because of the big spiders and we picked Julian Macdonald’s dress because of the scales. Alexander McQueen’s outfits need no explanation; Gaga has already worn one of those (incl. the crazy shoes) in her video Bad Romance and we think Gaga would actually love to wear all of his designs.

Unfortunately Gaga’s on-and-off boyfriend Matthew Williamson didn’t design anything kinky that that would suit her. Yet we think there’s more than enough to choose from for the 23-year old singer. And if she doesn’t find the right outfit, she can always ask a designer to make one for her. Cause designers understand that Lady Gaga wearing one of your outfits is good publicity and they’ll do anything to make that happen.

Dolce & Gabbana Catwalk Fashion Show Milan FW2010

The Dolce & Gabbana fashion show started with a short (black & white) film in which we saw Domenico and Stefano working in their atelier. We watched them putting their first designs together and saw how they put them on on some models. We could see the joy in their eyes as they slowly created several gorgeous designs, of course with a little help. Actually, all of the atelier’s employees were introduced in the film. In their long, clean, white jackets they smiled at the camera as the first models came up.

The fall/winter collection was built around three themes: Sicilianita’, sartorialita’ and sensualita’. They were reflected in several ways:

1. Domenico and Stefano (after 25 years) went back to their Sicilian roots (Sicilianita’).

2. The clothes represented Dolce & Gabbana’s signature tailoring (sartorialita’).

3. The models looked very feminine and sensual in the lingerie-inspired designs (sensualita’).

We listened to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack ‘Come what may’ as the first models quickly passed in some black tailored jackets combined with short pants and lace dresses. When a few corsets were introduced, we were sure: the lingerie-influences from last summer were back.

The models all wore gold accessories. Some of the clothes were decorated with lots of golden coins. And the ‘new women’, as Stefano Gabbana put it, carried an I-pod with golden earphones.

All girls  looked very lady-like. Though the double breasted jackets might have looked a little masculine, they were executed in a soft and feminine way. The fabrics: lace, silk and satin added to the sensual feeling of the collection.

Leopard prints, polka dots and floral prints combined beautifully with the black of the collection. Like in the summer collection those different prints were matched in one look. It looked stunning.

During the finale 75 models came onto the runway, dressed in fitted black jackets combined with shorts and small dresses.

The show made us shiver and, as we heard, it made the people backstage shed a few tears.

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