Anna Sui by Andrew Bolton

Author:Andrew Bolton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2010-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

Runway backdrop. Women’s Wear Daily. February 2001. Photograph by Adam Olszewski.

Advertisement for Sui Love fragrance. Photograph by Sarah Moon.

Photographs by Raoul Gatchalian.

2002 SPRING|SUMMER

Like many New York–based designers, Sui canceled the runway presentation for her spring|summer 2002 collection as a gesture of respect to the victims and their families of the suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Before the attack, which occurred during New York Fashion Week, Sui had intended to present her collection against a projected backdrop from the animated television series Dexter’s Laboratory. Created by Genndy Tartakovsky and produced by Cartoon Network Studios, the series revolves around a boy genius named Dexter who has a secret laboratory supplied with highly advanced equipment hidden behind a bookshelf in his bedroom. Taken from one episode, the projected backdrop was to show a blank screen framed with black thorny vines that gradually increased in size and volume until they filled the entire screen. The look of the vines reminded the designer of the drawings of British illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, which were among the primary sources of inspiration for her spring|summer 2002 collection.

Beardsley’s work is characterized by its flowing, undulating lines, exemplified by The Peacock Skirt, an illustration that appeared in the English edition of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome (1894), and one that Sui used as the basis for a series of dazzling peacock feathers hand painted on jeans and shorts. The illustrator was closely aligned with aestheticism (the British counterpart to French symbolism), which developed in Britain during the late Victorian period from the late 1860s to the early 1900s, a time frame that was reflected in Sui’s collection. Sui looked especially to the late 1890s, the influence of which could be seen in jackets with small gigot sleeves and tightly nipped-in waists that gave the effect of a broad shoulder line and a narrow waistline. Several of her jackets were influenced by military uniforms, which was a major theme in women’s fashions throughout the nineteenth century. One such jacket featured black braiding reminiscent of the parallel lines of braiding that extended across the breast of many uniforms from the period.

Sui’s use of falls of lace, frothy ruffles, and transparent materials were also elements of late-1890s women’s fashions that permeated her collection. The designer, however, translated these elements into delicate slip dresses and babydoll dresses. Signature Sui designs, they were, in the case of her spring|summer 2002 collection, inspired by the 1978 film Pretty Baby directed by Louis Malle and starring a twelve-year-old Brooke Shields in the title role. Set in 1917 during the last months of legal prostitution in Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans, the film is based on a fictional account of the life of Ernest Joseph Bellocq, a photographer who worked in New Orleans during the early twentieth century. Bellocq’s professional photography mostly featured landmarks and machinery for local companies, but his personal photography spotlighted the underbelly of the city, including the brothels of Storyville and the opium dens of Chinatown.

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