Anna Sui Quotations

I think whenever people talk about the 'Anna Sui woman,' they're talking about someone that's probably kind of more downtown, and there's always like this ambiguity: Is she a good girl, or a bad girl?

No one has ever found a solution for not doing a fashion show.

Every time that I wanted to give up, if I saw an interesting textile, print what ever, suddenly I would see a collection.

I love going to flea markets especially when I am traveling, because I love seeing the stuff of other cultures, handicrafts and things with historical content.

To me, fashion is like a mirror. It's a reflection of the times. And if it doesn't reflect the times, it's not fashion. Because people aren't gonna be wearing it.

I never intended being a business person I wanted to be a fashion designer.

I always say the next big thing will happen in unexpected places - up and coming cities that aren't necessarily boom markets.

Longing and desire goes further than instant satisfaction. That's human nature.

I think you have to be in the right place at the right time. And understand that and know when it is your time and how you react to it and how you respond to it.

Every collection that I work on, I always think, Is this cool enough to wear to a concert?

I have a big responsibility to my licenses. All my licenses draw from and take ideas from the runway.

I think that fashion has become such a big business and with globalization we are on new territory at this point. We are not just designing for a country we are designing for a world now.

A piece of fabric can get me going.

At the point when I wanted to become a designer, I didn't think about, 'Oh, but I'm a woman,' just like didn't think about like, well, 'I'm Chinese' or that 'I'm in Michigan.' You know, none of those things were obstacles to me. I just had this idea that this is what I had to do.

Creating a book and creating a collection involve a lot of editing.

I just love the whole idea of conversational prints.

There are always different influences each season. It could be a person, it could be a piece of furniture; it depends on what I'm obsessing about.

I think about that all of the time and I have this fantasy that I am going to work at a museum someday! I would love to do something like that!

When I look at designer books I am sometimes puzzled why they don't share their inspiration, when it's obvious somebody had such great inspiration.

I love research. When there's something that I like, I want to know everything about it. I want to know exactly what was behind it, and where it went from there.

I think I'm a global citizen. My parents came from China, were educated in France and emigrated to the United States. And I think that opened up my mind to be able to live and work anywhere.

I love punk, I love a lot of British Invasion bands, I love garage bands.

When punk really started to happen, it was a reaction against the disco craze of the time.

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit.

The only pants that I am using this season are jeans from my jeans collection. And, I've done them in denim again and also in corduroy.

I go to flea markets every weekend if I can.

I think that the fact that it's black and that it has like this color in it and there's painting around it. It just doesn't seem real, and then the fact that it's functional too.

I was very inspired by Goth music, which was kind of this whole thing that happened in the early '80s. There were bands like the Cure, and Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but then I also kind of mixed it with Victorian Goth,

I would like to home wear sheets towels people always want to buy the furniture in my store.

You still get the sheer quality coming through but you're covered.

Love this in the film, “Velvet Goldmine” it captures the excitement and the thrill at the moment of discovery!

Totally girly - love all the childish sounds.

I just love the way the '60s rock stars put themselves together, because they were like dandies and peacocks. They really lived out their fantasies - and dressed their fantasies.

I don't have the luxury of making clothes just to make an effect. It can't be something totally frivolous, because my distributors have to have a successful season, too.

Fashion should be fun and accessible.

I love the fact that fashion always changes, and I hate the fact that it always changes.

To me if you're going have a show, it should be a show. It should be entertaining and take you on a journey.

Nothing's faster than the Internet.

I love history. I love art. I like to mix it all together, but in the end it somehow has to all make sense.

When I started my own business, my main reason for designing clothes was that I wanted to dress rock stars and the people who went to rock concerts. It didn't go beyond that aspiration at that point.

You have to focus on your dreams, even if they go beyond common sense.

From the season I did the butterfly faux tattoos on the models on the runway, every collection we do has to have a butterfly t-shirt or trim or print. People come to me for butterflies!

The red library is Sui's tribute to fashion maven Diana Vreeland, who served as editor for Harper's Bazaar (1939-1962) and Vogue (1963-1961). My most precious collection is my bound Vogue magazines, .. and they're kind of like my Bible. I look at them all the time when I'm trying to inspire myself for a collection.

Well, my whole thing is that I'm kind of like a show-off!

I’m always about optimism and exuberance. It’s what I feel about fashion.

The sexiest thing about a bikini is that it leaves something to the imagination, which is the best part.

What people look to me for is a whole look. People come to me for icing on the cake, not a basic stretch pant.

We have a lot of great vintage stores. I like shopping, in general, so I can simply go to a drugstore and shop.

When I was starting, there were wool mills in the U.S. that could make you anything. The U.S. used to produce the most beautiful cotton denim in the world. Now all that is gone.

Every season I buy a double-breasted jacket but it could be fitted, very boxy. It could be oversized. It could be forties-shaped. So I think it's my job to make it desirable and new for the customer and the customer always has to fill in that slot in their wardrobe.

The shapes are very elongated and lean. My sweaters kind of go beyond the hip. They're very, very skinny. A lot of the jackets are cardigan shapes and again, they're long and skinny.

You see a lot of uneven hemlines, a lot of biased cut, and a lot of pleating with uneven bottoms on the pleats,

It's a touch of fantasy that you want. It adds just a touch of color, and you feel very feminine.

I wanted to be a designer since I was a kid, and I was always attracted to the way rock stars dressed and the way their girlfriends dressed. I always thought that they were the most interesting people.

I love this collection because it's really, really me. I didn't want to see nudity, I wanted to see clothing, so we've been layering things.

I really wanted to bring magic and fun back to cosmetics. I mean that's always been my attraction with cosmetics: color, texture, sparkle, glitter and all the things that make you kind of different or special.

The colors kind of take on a very earthy tone, but with a richness of a forest or a garden. Dark greens, redish browns, kind of golden yellows, and some oranges for accent.

The jackets that I did were very unconstructed,