There are few designers who weave autobiography into their collections as effectively as Anna Sui. The gloss of her show tonight was the work of the French interior-decorating legend Madeleine Castaing—chintzes, shades of blue, leopard as a base—but the guts were Sui s own years as a habitué of London s and New York s punk underworlds. The connection between the two was chaos. Castaing loved the style of the Second Empire in France, the mid-nineteenth-century period that followed the chaos of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic upheaval. Chaos and late-1970s punk? Goes without saying.
It might read as fiercely academic on paper (and the whole subject is, in fact, about to be the focus of the Met Costume Institute s next extravaganza), but when Karlie Kloss opened Sui s show in a zippered, brocade, Clash-meets-Castaing jumpsuit, the designer s internal logic started to make raw physical sense. Her love of vintage casts her as a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, but there are few youth cults as riven by romance as punk, so Sui was simply bringing about a union that was written in rock n roll s stars. Her touchstone was the late Mirielle Cervenka, sister of singer Exene, whose effortless blend of Victoriana and ripped-and-torn was one of Sui s early inspirations. What said that better than a lace cape scored with rose-gold zippers? Or a floral chintz dress layered over cropped, multi-zipped pants?
When people write books or make music in this style, it s called steampunk. But this show s punk aspect was ultimately less significant than Sui s own ardent attachment to the spirit of idiosyncratic style. A biker jacket in neoprene, a jaunty hat shaped after cat ears, a contoured chambray dress dripping with pearls…none of that was necessary, but all of it was irresistible.
