My Summer at Anna Sui

The nineties are back, but for those of us who lived them the first time around, the revival feels slightly off.

The Nineties x Anna Sui monograph was released last week, and it’s one I’ve been looking forward to. Anna Sui is one of my favorite designers, and I studied and worked in fashion during that time. In the summer of 1995, I was set to start an internship at Barneys New York with then design director Ronald van der Kemp (still years away from launching his couture label RVDK). I attended one fitting. Then HR called me in. Because I’d entered the country on a visa waiver, I wasn’t legally allowed to work in the US, even unpaid. The internship ended before it began.

That same week, I interviewed at Anna Sui.

No one asked to see a portfolio or credentials. The late Thomas Miller, Anna’s longtime right hand, asked if I knew what 'errands' were. Another intern had refused to do them and walked out. I said I had no problem with running errands. 

The Fall ’95 collection was being packed for shipment. Resort was in early development. A new diffusion line, Sui by Anna Sui, had just gone into production: poplin romantic chemises, faux-leopard coats, tailored jackets. Anna described them as “pieces to wear until they fall apart.” James Coviello designed the knitwear. T-shirts were printed by Casual Tees. Purses were manufactured by Walker. Sample garments were made on site and delivered directly from the sample room to the showroom racks.

Most of my work was in logistics and admin, but it offered a window into how the fashion studio operated. 

Errands took me through the Garment District, where Sui’s vendors were based. I sourced trims, picked up swatches, delivered paperwork. I retrieved garments from stylists at the UN Plaza Hotel, dropped fabric samples in Chinatown, entered buildings through freight entrances with handwritten addresses folded in my pocket. I walked fast through midtown, down West 39th toward Seventh Avenue, Fashion Avenue. The showroom was located just below Bryant Park, not far from the old New York Times building. The fashion and media crowd moved through the same blocks. At lunch, I sat in Bryant Park with a sketchbook, taking notes. Even that felt like part of the job.

The showroom mirrored the décor of the flagship boutique on Greene Street. The same palette of purple and black. The mood was ornate and romantic with black Victorian furniture, framed rock posters, and the signature 'dolly heads'. That boutique (unfortunately, now closed) was always a favourite downtown stop.

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Nineties styles like slip dresses with combat boots are back. But for those of us who wore them the first time around, the revival feels slightly off. Referencing shouldn’t be passive. It’s contextual, taking a detail from one era, placing it into another, and reworking it until it feels intentional. Anna Sui built her collections that way. Her work wasn’t nostalgic in the literal sense. Each collection drew from a world of music, film, fashion history, and subculture. The Museum of Arts and Design calls her a storyteller through fabric and silhouette.

The Nineties x Anna Sui book brings it all back: the style, the Limelight (and everything it represented), the creative energy of a decade that pulled from the past and deconstructed it into something new. But it also reminds us that revival without context kind of loses sight of what made it matter in the first place.