The Originals: How Anna Sui Became the Gen Z Fashion Whisperer

After 40 years in the business, Anna Sui has evolved into the Gen Z fashion whisperer.

Her vintage styles are a hot commodity in shops, including Etsy, and among substackers. She has a steady stream of buzzy collaborations, the most recent an exclusive bridal offering with Ssense. Young celebs like Olivia Rodrigo and Dua Lipa have discovered her clothing. And her runway collections still generate heat with Debbie Harry, Sofia Coppola, Marc Jacobs and more sitting in the front row during the fall 2024 show, which smartly mixed contemporary and archive styles the way many women do in their own wardrobes.

A fixture on the New York fashion scene, and one who is still independent, Sui has managed to keep cocreating with her fashion family, the same people she’s been working with the entirety of her career. That includes Coppola (designing costumes for the director’s latest film “Priscilla”) and Jacobs (collaborating on a limited-edition varsity jacket and bag to commemorate his 40th anniversary, as well as designing styles for Heaven by Marc Jacobs).

She’s also been influenced by her own family, who has helped keep her plugged into youth culture even now, contributing informally and then more formally to the Anna Sui brand.

“It started with my nieces. As they became teenagers and got more into fashion, they were raiding their mom’s closets,” Sui told WWD of watching Jeannie Sui Wonders, Grace Sui, Isabelle Sui, Perry Sui and actress Chase Sui Wonders discover her clothes over the last decade. “Every Christmas, they’d all come to dinner in their mom’s ‘90s pieces. I would think, ‘I forgot about that dress; it looks so cute the way you’re wearing it!’ That was the beginning.”

“I love collaborating on shoots with her because the world she creates through her clothes is so well studied and fleshed out and full of fun things to draw creative inspiration from,” said Jeannie Sui Wonders, who directed Sui’s fall 2022 fashion film.

Chase Sui Wonders, who modeled her aunt’s collaborative designs with New York label Batsheva, added, “My aunt’s approach to making clothes has always been a source of inspiration. She does her research and pulls from history and different cultures to create intricate worlds of her own. I’m grateful to have gotten to collaborate with her.”

In truth, Sui has always been on the pulse of youth culture, whether it’s ’60s Mod, ’70s boho, ’90s grunge or today’s vintage redux trend.

And although Sui has been looking at her history with new eyes, she’s kept her design process, “almost the same,” she said during an interview in New York, where she discussed how younger generations have inspired her; the influence of social media; keeping up with her fashion family; the ups and downs of her career, and what’s next.

Season after season, her collections — which first hit the runway in 1991 with the help of supermodel friends Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista — have evoked nostalgia with a sense of fantasy and wonder rooted in Sui’s deep knowledge and thorough research of vintage fashions, the arts and pop culture. At her Garment District headquarters, seasonal fabrics and mood boards line the walls, giving a peek into her inspirations, including retro 1950s to 1970s band posters, photographs of Virginia Woolf’s book covers and Clarice Cliff’s ceramics.

Although not as massive as her 40-something-year-old brand peers Jacobs, and Michael Kors, her business, which sells everything from a $20 Ring Rouge to $1,000 ready-to-wear pieces, is thriving globally and domestically. In the U.S. her retail partners include Nordstrom, Ssense, Anthropologie, Free People and Marc Jacobs’ Heaven shops at Dover Street Market in Los Angeles, London, New York and Singapore.

Beauty helps power the brand, as seen from the popularity of the Anna Sui Sundae Pretty Pink fragrance, which won “Packaging of the Year” at the 2024 Fragrance Foundation Awards. She also has a robust licensing program, particularly in Asia, including partnering with Interparfums for fragrance; Albion Japan for cosmetics, and Mondottica China for eyewear.

The vision for it all is still driven by the runway.

The Power of Vintage

Sui’s own archive has become a centerpiece of new collections — a result of younger generations’ heightened interest in vintage, which has positioned Sui’s designs at the center of Gen Z style. For instance, her stellar fall 2024 show, held in New York’s iconic Strand bookstore’s Rare Book Room, featured “a very modern ‘Miss Marple,’” with a mix of vintage finds from her collections and others, remixed with her signature downtown-grunge cool. The vintage finds are available via the brand’s website and a new Anna’s Vintage Closet subsection for Gen Z fans looking for Sui styles old and new.

Sui has taken cues from how her nieces mix and match styles — often with sportif layers, or playing with proportions with more skin-baring pieces rather than wearing a look head-to-toe. 

“Seeing it in today’s eyes, it’s a different proportion and almost a different aesthetic. Grunge was dressing down, but there’s almost a preppy thing going on now,” she said. “It’s really exciting again, it makes me feel relevant, and that the clothes never dated themselves.”

Sui’s career was highlighted and brought to a wider audience via the exhibition “The World of Anna Sui,” which was on display at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum in 2017; at Roppongi Hills in Tokyo in 2018, and at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design in 2020.

Prior to the exhibitions, Sui said she hadn’t looked at her career “in any other way than season after season.” However, viewing the show, which featured her designs organized via 12 archetypes including the rocker, schoolgirl, punk, nomad, Goth and Bohemian, made her realize recurring themes. 

“Revisiting that reminded me of things that I love; things that I wanted to explore more, and things that had evolved, that I’d like to take a new stand on,” Sui said.

The first time Sui tapped into her archive was following the exhibition, when the retailer Opening Ceremony asked her to reissue a handful of styles. 

Right after that, Marc Jacobs asked her to recreate 10 to 12 pieces from her own grunge collection to accompany the revival of his famous spring 1993 grunge line for Perry Ellis.

Ssense is another retailer that has pushed for recreations.

“I spent a lot of my early 20s in New York, and Anna Sui was always at the top of my list for places to shop. It was the iconic, must-visit destination for every fashion girl in the city. So when the Y2K moment was making a comeback in 2020, we embraced brands that were authentic to that era, which is ultimately how we brought Anna into the Ssense world,” said Brigitte Chartrand, whose title is vice president of womenswear buying and everything else.

Since 2021, Sui has worked closely with Ssense each season to offer new recreations from the past, such as white baby-doll dresses for the retailer’s exclusive summer Bridal 2.0 collection.

“Our capsule collections have always been about differentiating ourselves from what’s already available on the market, and for bridal, we wanted to infuse an interesting cultural perspective, too,” Chartrand said. “Anna’s now-famous spring/summer 1994 baby-doll silhouette and feathered headband worn by Naomi Campbell was so ‘of-the-moment’ in the ’90s that we knew it had to be in the collection. We felt it was going to resonate very well with our customers.”

Those famed baby-doll dresses were also on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Camp: Notes on Fashion” Costume Institute exhibition in 2019 while runway images of the supermodel trio — Christy Turlington, Campbell, Evangelista — have continued “floating around on the internet,” Sui said of the supermodel obsession. Today, videos and images of that finale walk continue to pop up on TikTok and Instagram scrolls.

“It’s exciting to see it resonate with a different audience and in a very different context, but I think that’s what’s happened with vintage. We’re looking at it in a different way now,” she said of how shopping broadly for vintage has become more collecting-minded. “It’s much more of a quest for people, I think because they’re more invested in certain collections from a certain designer.”

Over the last few years she’s brought back the velvet princess dresses from fall 1998 and slipdresses from the ‘90s; modernized her spring 2004 retro surf shirts in sporty spandex for spring 2022; reissued spring ‘93 and 2005 collections’ smocked blouses and lace-trimmed skirts for fall 2024, and played into her fantastical world with the return of novelty accessories, like the Bunny hat, each season.

Hollywood has been taking notice.

Actress Zoe Deschanel wore a purple Baroque satin floral jacquard mini from Sui’s fall 2013 collection to the Los Angeles premiere of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” in July, while “It” girls Olivia Rodrigo (in the Lisa dress at a Philadelphia Phillies game), Dua Lipa (wearing the black-tie top exclusive reissue from spring 2001 for Ssense on “Saturday Night Live”), Ariana Grande (in the fall 2024 Fair Isle fleece zip-up while teasing her “Eternal Sunshine” album), Suki Waterhouse (a sweet green gingham ensemble from spring 2024 for her “My Fun” music video), and more have been spotted in her designs. 

Keeping the Senses Open

“We’re on Instagram probably first thing every morning. We see everything that’s going on. You’re seeing not only what’s going on with fashion, but what’s going on with celebrities, what’s going on with movies, cultural influences,” Sui said. “I’m a stickler for research — learning about new things and diving into the topics that I don’t know about.”

Speaking to seasonal mood boards, Sui described her process as “first praying that you’re going to have an idea,” then keeping her senses open to every possibility of inspiration — movies, museum exhibitions, books, magazine and online articles, or even Instagram photos.

Some seasons are inspired by a selection of inspiration images she’s saved, while others are sparked directly by a singular idea, such as memories of watching old Busby Berkeley films with her father. 

“You just never know what you’re going to draw from; it’s just keeping your senses open for it,” she said.

While collecting these resources, Sui keeps an eye out for potential partnerships, such as recent ones with Batsheva, Daisy Chain Jewelry and Heaven by Marc Jacobs. After all, her label has always been rooted in collaborations with her “fashion family.”

Sui said it all started with meeting photographer Steven Meisel while studying at Parsons.

“I did styling with him when he first started doing his photography. That’s how I met Franca Sozzani; when I started doing my collections and I needed money, that’s how I got the freelance work — Franca introduced me to Italian manufacturers. Those connections really, really, really helped,” she recalled of the late Italian journalist and Vogue Italia editor.

Through Meisel, Sui met Campbell, Evangelista and Turlington, whom she knew socially but had never worked with prior to her 1991 runway show. Through the years, she met Pat McGrath, who does the makeup for her shows to this day.

“Anna is synonymous with New York,” McGrath said of Sui. “From Day One, her designs have captured the eclectic energy of the city — the grunge and the glamour, the rebelliousness and the sophistication — and in the process helped define New York style as we know it.”

Her Fashion Family

The celebrated makeup artist, who’s worked with Sui for 25 years, recalled one of her favorite backstage moments for the designer’s fall 2017 runway show, when she evoked decadence and playfulness with a strong burgundy lip and bold, shimmering blue eye — a debut shadow created for one of her first Pat McGrath Labs drops.

“Like me, she’s a fashion fanatic and loves to push boundaries,” said McGrath. “Her shows are also just a lot of fun. Backstage is always lighthearted and playful, like her clothing, but we get the job done. It’s great to have experiences where creative types can have a good time and yet be absolutely serious about the job they’re doing.”

“It’s really been so rewarding to be able to work with all these people all these years,” Sui said.

Recalling the peaks and valleys of her storied career, Sui said the most beautiful memory is still her first show. “When all my friends helped me and it all came together by a miracle, because I had no money, I had no idea how to do it, but everyone pitched in, and we really made it all happen,” she said. “The biggest struggle through my whole career was always money.”

In the early days, Sui worked freelance jobs in Italy to finance her own collections. To this day, she has remained independent. 

That’s because of licensing, she said, which started in the ‘90s when Isetan in Japan picked up her label and “brought along 12 licenses,” including cosmetics. Today, in addition to cosmetics and fragrance, she has a licensed activewear line in China; the Anna Sui NYC Streetwear line in Japan; Narumiya children’s wear in Japan, plus seven other Japanese licenses and a Korean collaboration.

Prior to the licensing partnerships, Sui said she was worried each season if she’d make it: “Those licenses are really what were my life support all these years.”

While the topic of succession is a hot one in the industry right now, Sui, who celebrated her 60th birthday on Aug. 4, isn’t planning to slow down anytime soon.

Keeping the Dream Alive

“I just don’t know what I would do with myself,” she said, describing her drive for being a designer by using the Italian saying “La chimera,” meaning “the impossible dream.”

Growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, Sui was surrounded by the golden age of television and pop culture, highlighted by The Beatles and British invasion music, Barbie, Twiggy, Motown and local bands Iggy and the Stooges and MC5.

She said her whole childhood was spent trying to figure out how clothes were made and how fashion happened. She was enthralled by magazines and on summer trips to New York would make a point to visit all the stores, including Biba when it was at Bergdorf Goodman, she said of the influential Swinging Sixties London boutique that had a presence in the department store.

“My mom bought me a T-shirt and an eye shadow from there,” she said, still marveling over the score.

“There were moments when I would grab onto something and try to find out more about it, and information was much harder to come by back then. You had to actually find it in a magazine or newspaper,” Sui said. 

“I think that that’s why [the term] resonated…‘La Chimera,’ that’s my quest in my life. Capturing where did those ideas come from? Where did those looks come from? What were the rock stars’ wives wearing and what were British designers doing in these boutiques? I just love finding out information about that and what begat what; who wore that and influenced everybody else,” she said.

Beyond design, Sui said she is interested in evolving the runway experience and is looking forward to the return of “The World of Anna Sui” exhibition, which kicks off at the Phoenix Art Museum in February 2025, followed by the Cranbrook Art Museum in Michigan in 2026.

Outside of the office, Sui is a lover of film — both behind-the-scenes documentaries and feature films. She recently made a few costumes for Sofia Coppola’s 2023 movie “Priscilla,” including the pink shirtwaist dress that Cailee Spaeny, who played Priscilla Presley, wore upon arriving in Memphis.

“Sofia was up at my office and we were just talking, and she saw a roll that I had saved probably for 20 years in my fabric room. She said, ‘I love this,’ and that became the shirtwaist dress,” Sui said. 

When asked if she would be interested in a documentary about her career, Sui answered, “We’re working on it.” 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Originals is an occasional feature in WWD dedicated to mavericks in fashion, beauty, retail and culture.