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.
Anna Sui
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.
Longing and desire goes further than instant satisfaction. That's human nature.
No one has ever found a solution for not doing a fashion show.
Every collection that I work on, I always think, Is this cool enough to wear to a concert?
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.
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.
Every time that I wanted to give up, if I saw an interesting textile, print what ever, suddenly I would see a collection.
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 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.
Fashion should be fun and accessible.
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?
When punk really started to happen, it was a reaction against the disco craze of the time.
I have a big responsibility to my licenses. All my licenses draw from and take ideas from the runway.
I always say the next big thing will happen in unexpected places - up and coming cities that aren't necessarily boom markets.
I live for fashion.
I love punk, I love a lot of British Invasion bands, I love garage bands.
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.
Nothing's faster than the Internet.
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markets especially when I am traveling, because I love seeing the stuff of other cultures, handicrafts and things with historical content.
Creating a book and creating a collection involve a lot of editing.
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.
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.
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 love history. I love art. I like to mix it all together, but in the end it somehow has to all make sense.
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!
To me if you're going have a show, it should be a show. It should be entertaining and take you on a journey.
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.
Well, my whole thing is that I'm kind of like a show-off!
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.
I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit.
A piece of fabric can get me going.
I never intended being a business person I wanted to be a fashion designer.
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.
I just love the whole idea of conversational prints.
