Anna Sui Talks ’90s Fashion, Vintage Shopping, and Viral TikTok Trends

If the baby-pink bikini tops and lace-edged crinoline skirts sound like a Sabrina Carpenter video come to life, that’s partly the point. After all, Sui has an almost mystic ability to foresee future trends just before anyone else. She began working on this collection over six months ago—well before “Espresso” went from a coffee order to a cultural touchstone—and instructed her design team to hone in on a “demure” vibe before the word transcended all meaning on the internet. How is she doing it? “You just tune out what other people say you should do,” she says, waving her hands as if conducting an orchestra. “You know, I was always kind of a rebel to other people. I just did my own thing.”

Bella and Gigi Hadid at Anna Sui’s runway show in September 2017.

Sui knows her thing has become, well, everybody’s thing. A beloved Gen X and millennial brand for years, her namesake label became a Gen Z obsession right around 2017, when the designer cannily cast Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid on her catwalk. Doll-faced rock vixens like Olivia Rodrigo, Suki Waterhouse, and Karen Elson carried Sui’s style torch. Then social media helped make her a de facto wardrobe whisperer for young women with both money and an extreme enthusiasm for embroidered silk. The surge in Gen Z interest resulted in a serious demand for the designer’s vintage collections—a neat thing, considering Sui herself is a vintage junkie.

“It’s such a different thing now, vintage,” she says. “You used to have to go out and search for what you wanted. You used to need to be lucky. Now, you have a search engine. You type in ‘Chanel bow’ and there it is. ‘Miu Miu shoes,’ there they are. Then it’s just a matter of, are you going to pay for this vintage thing? Because prices have gone through the ceiling. Then, vintage wasn’t exactly an investment, you know? It was a quest. You had to be lucky.”

Dua Lipa wears Anna Sui during a performance on Saturday Night Live.

I ask Sui if she considers herself lucky. “Of course, but also, very disciplined,” she says nonchalantly. “I’m the first one into the office and the last one out. I don’t think there’s a substitute for an incredibly strong work ethic. You’ve got to do it for yourself.” Cast in point: Next month, Sui will release five fragrances in the U.S. market. “The hint is ‘Sally, go ‘round the roses,’ which is the theme name of the spring 2025 collection, and also a Jaynetts song!” she says.

So, a bunch of floral perfumes, paired with the daisy-embroidered lace dresses and kilts from Sui’s spring 2025 line, based on a ’60s doo-wop band fronted by three teenage girls in New York? The TikTok algorithm is already being written.

Faran Krentcil is a fashion journalist and critic based in New York City. She is the founding editor of Fashionista and a graduate of Duke University. Her work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and more.