THE ORIGINAL REBELLIOUS BOHEMIAN PRARIE NY DESIGNER

Anna Sui   was born was born in Detroit to Chinese immigrants, and knew at 4 years that she she wanted to be a fashion designer living in New York City. Before the end of her senior high school year, she was accepted to Parsons and after two years there, Anna launched her first collection in 1981. Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista premiered in her first runway show and her career soared with the support of close friends in fashion like Meisel and Madonna and an amazing flagship in Soho that felt like a psychedelic den of treasures including posters, and some of my favourite t shirts and 90’s baby doll dresses.

While making the rounds of the downtown music scene of the early 1980s, she dreamed of dressing rock musicians, and created bright, flirtatious, defiantly urban pieces out of her Chelsea apartment. But it wasn’t until she gathered up the fortitude to take her vision to the runways that an eclectic mix of vintage and rock reworked for contemporary provocation helped define the style of the 1990s. Sui isn’t afraid to tap far-out (or historically far-off) sources for inspiration—cowboys, early 20th-century French fashion illustrations, Kurt Cobain, cheerleaders—or create unorthodox blends of materials. - Lisa Marie Presley