There’s Kurt Cobain hanging out. There’s Linda Evangelista off-duty. There’s Dave Navarro on the runway. And there’s Anna Sui at the center of it all, in a new book coming out this autumn with Rizzoli. The past always looks rosy, but it looks especially halcyon through Anna Sui’s eyes. The legendary fashion designer was at the white hot core of 1990s fashion, launching her brand in the late ’80s and swiftly becoming the go-to label for everyone from Madonna to Sofia Coppola. Her whimsical collections, dreamed up from her own fashion fantasies, have become true fashion lore, helping to define the look and spirit of the 1990s.
In the nearly 200 page photobook, Sui, Coppola, Marc Jacobs, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turnlington recount the wild and crazy times of the 1990s with rare and never-before-seen images from Sui’s archive, all compiled by curator Ileen Gallagher. “Marc Jacobs and Anna started doing shows, all of a sudden it was like the kids were in charge and they made clothes that spoke to us—it wasn’t our mom’s generation,” writes Sofia Coppola in the book, emphasizing the youthquake that Sui, Jacobs, and the arrival of grunge brought to the industry—and the world.
The book is a treasure trove of fashion at its purest and most fun, when designers were artists and imaginators, and when models were besties with great style. (Plus, there’s some nostalgic commentary from yours truly!) In honor of the announcement, Sui and I caught up about why the ’90s will always be the last great moment.
Steff Yotka: What made you want to look back at the 1990s now?
Anna Sui: It was really based on all your friends, actually. All these new people that I met recently, like Lynette [Nylander, the executive digital director at Harper’s Bazaar] and the whole generation of new journalists that I’ve been meeting through you, through SCAD, and through Gia [Kuan, Anna’s publicist]. Everybody wants to know how it was back then. It was genuinely a real community. We all went to the same restaurants, if you went out to dinner you saw like at least 10 people that you knew if not 20. If there was a party everybody would be at that party. It was not as fragmented or paid for as it is now.
Why do you think we’re feeling such nostalgia for the ’90s now?
I think it’s that realness. The genuine quality of what was going on then. It was a magic moment when alternative music, alternative film, and alternative fashion all happened—it was a changing of the guard. Suddenly, there were new designers and new ways of dressing. People’s style changed a lot from the ’80s to the ’90s, from that flashy look of the ’80s. People had been so corporate,wearing Miss Biz suits, big shoulders, and big hair, and then all of a sudden that look was leveled.Middle-parted hair; long, very vintage-looking clothes; and nothing flashy became in style. Everything was very subtle: little chokers, platform wedgies, jeans, and vintage tops.
Is there something that you’d forgotten about from that time that you rediscovered in making this book?
I loved finding the dresser cards—especially the first ones from the early shows. They were so precious. I hand wrote all the descriptions myself and wrote them neatly rather than a scribble. All those moments were so precious to me because I was so excited about doing my first show. I was in disbelief that I was able to do it, and have Linda and Naomi and all those models in the show. It was so special to have them come up to the studio and fit outfits. It was almost a fairy tale for me. I never thought I was going to be in that position. I can feel it through the way I wrote all the notes and took so much care in the presentation of everything. I saved the fabric swatches and all the sketches—I don’t know if you notice a lot of them are in the back of invoices. To save on paper I would use the back side of invoices to sketch the collection, so you can see some of the numbers coming through because I was so thrifty back then.
For the kids reading this that don’t know, can you explain a little bit about how you came into contact with Christy and Linda and Naomi?
Because I was friends with Steven [Meisel]. We all hung out socially, like they would come over to my apartment or we’d all go out to dinner together. We’d go to parties together. I never really worked with them unless Steven invited me to a photoshoot. I did do some styling with Steven in those early years, like from the mid ’80s through the early ’90s for Italian Vogue. It was amazing. I worked with Garren and Kevin Aucoin and Oribe—it was just magical doing it for Franca Sozzani. We did a whole tribute to Diana Vreeland on Linda Evangelista. We did those Lady Miss Kier pictures for Italian Vogue. Sometimes he would just invite me to the shoot, like when he shot Liza Minnelli. I styled the Madonna cover where she’s wearing that beautiful sheer outfit with strategically placed crystals [February 1991]. It all happened very organically because that was our social circle.
Within the first 10 pages of this book, you meet every important person of the ’90s, from Kurt Cobain to Madonna to Sofia Coppola and Marc Jacobs. Did it feel magical to be at the center of it all?
Totally. I mean, here I was, an independent designer. I started my business in my apartment. I still did the shipping, I still did the ironing, pinning the tags on, I did all that just because we were such a small staff of people. Then suddenly the phone was ringing and people wanted clothes. I’ve talked about Madonna wearing the babydoll dress to the Gaultier show—it was one of the moments that gave me the confidence to even do a fashion show.
Then, suddenly, so many people were wearing my clothes. Everywhere I went, everyone I met knew about my brand. I would see a concert or meet a band, the guys would say, “My girlfriend wears your clothes” or, “My girlfriend wants to come in and shop.” Stephanie Seymour came into the store when she was with Axl [Rose]. In doing research for the book, I realized so many people had the clothes that I didn’t know about. Patricia Arquette was wearing the clothes. When I met Winona [Ryder], she told me she wore a lot of my clothes and she even wore it in her movie Reality Bites. The twins in the Jim Carroll movie [The Basketball Diaries], are wearing my babydoll dresses. Everybody passed through my store: Natalie Portman, Clare Danes when she was on My So Called Life…
In many of your early shows and early pictures, you had cute guys wearing the clothes as well. In the baby doll section there’s this guy—Justin, look 47. Very cute Justin.
Again, Steven Meisel was the master of casting. He’d always tell me, “Oh, you have to see this guy, he’d be perfect for your clothes.” It was only when I saw his retrospective in Spain about the year 1993 that I realized all the guys that had done my shows were in his photos. That’s how I met Donovan Leitch. That’s also how I met Zoe [Cassavetes] and Sofia [Coppola].
What is the thing that you miss the most from the ’90s?
There was a support system. The press was really there for you and everyone was vying for the first photos of the collection. Department stores would try to be the first one in line when you were greeting them after the show because they told you which outfits they wanted for their windows. It was amazing because they were all so supportive. It would be season after season that they wanted your things for the window, or a shop, or wanted to develop special things with you. Same with magazines: people would ask for exclusives and try to support the collection.
Time is a big difference, too. When you showed a collection, it wasn’t available for six months.People had time to build a desire for that look. It’s just so immediate now. The pieces don’t feel as precious. I think that’s why you and I love vintage. We can get that fairy handbag from Prada from 2008–there’s been 13 years of longing for it.
There’s no time to cultivate desire.
I think it’s so important, especially in fashion.