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<H4>by Bart Boehlert</H4>
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Fashion designer Anna Sui's showroom is a splendid, almost Victorian mix of purple walls, ornate black clothing racks, glass lamps, and red floors all cantilevered over noisy Eighth Avenue in New York City. At the appointed hour, Sui (pronounced "Swee") arrives, dressed all in black accept for a deep purple cashmere scarf draped around her neck. She takes a seat and places her black handbag at her feet. Her jet black hair, black clothes, and the black racks behind her are almost indistinguishable. She has the stillness of a statue; the calm at the center of a dynamic business.
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Sui's funky, fun, moderately priced clothes are sold in almost 200 stores all over the world, including Harrods in London and Joyce in Hong Kong. Sui has her own busy store in Soho in New York City, and is thinking about opening more stores in Japan. She works as a consultant for the Milan-based Gilmar Group on it's Cento X Cento collection, and designs a less expensive secondary line called Sui by Anna Sui which Gilmar also produces. The designer runs in fashion's fast pack, with friends like Vogue photographer Steven Meisel, Harper's Bazaar Fashion Director Paul Cavaco, and supermodels Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell. For the April cover of Vogue, Meisel photographed Lisa Marie Presley in a light blue Anna Sui suit.
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Sui grew up in a Michigan suburb, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, with an older brother and a younger brother. Hers was the only Asian family in town but she did not feel like an outsider. "I was just special," says Sui. "I was a good student, belonged to all the social groups, and was on the best dressed list." Her brothers are now stockbrokers in Michigan, but she had wilder ambitions: "I always wanted to be a fashion designer."
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On her sixteenth birthday Sui's parents sent her to New York City to investigate Parsons School of Design, where she studied for two years and met Meisel. She subsequently worked at a steady stream of different sportswear companies until 1981 when she designed some pieces of her own which were bought by Macy's and featured in a full page New York Times ad. "My employer at the time gave me an ultimatum: stop designing my own clothes or quit, so I quit," she says.
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<ADDRESS>© Copyright 1996 Urban Desires</ADDRESS>
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