When she begins designing a collection, Sui returns to her youth and her memories of growing up. For the fall 1996 collection, which she just showed in March, Sui was inspired by the 1920's Bloomsbury literary group as it was portrayed in the movie "Carrington," which in turn reminded her of Ken Russell films like "Women in Love" that she'd seen in the 70's. "When I design I think back to another time," she says, "to the initial excitement of first discovering the 20's in the 70's in Detroit in the Ken Russell movies." The resulting collection is a marvelous mix of velvet, tweeds, sequins, feather hats, amber jewelry, and beaded bags. "I used to wear a raccoon thing like this," she says, fingering a fake fur coat. "This collection is all my old clothes."With its accessories and jewelry and dazzle, the grouping is a welcome relief from the minimalism that has been popular in fashion for the last few years. "Fashion has been on vacation," says Sui. "It's been blankness, plainness, nothing. It's been McDonald's uniforms. It was tough for me because I like jewelry and all that stuff but I had to bite the bullet and table the accessories."
Even Sui's spring 1996 collection, an homage to geeky, preppy, madras style presented last fall, had few accessories -- only lunch boxes and Hush Puppy shoes. Sui had just shut her shop in Los Angeles for lack of business when she designed the spring collection. "That collection was about the sadness of closing my store in California," she says. Her urban style had not caught on in LaLa Land. "L.A. is just another suburb," she allows.
As for the future of fashion, Sui predicts it will continue to move toward richness and glamour. "I think it's going to stay on this romantic wave," she says. "And each designer will express themself as only they can." Sui encourages young people coming up to stick with it. "You have to learn your craft," she says. "It doesn't happen overnight. It was a huge struggle, and I did think about giving up many, many times, but your dream can come true. If I can inspire one person to stick with something that they love..."
