One of the things that makes Anna Sui’s show a Fashion Week crowd-pleaser is that she always seems to be having fun. She plays great rock ‘n’ roll, seeds the front row with her groovy friends (Sofia Coppola, Vincent Gallo, the sexily ravaged Psychedelic Furs singer Richard Butler) and gets the best models to sashay down her runway. And whether you take to her retro-boho pastiche sensibility or not, you always walk out smiling.
For fall, Sui rummaged through the great moments of glitter rock and summoned the ghost of Biba, the legendary late-sixties London boutique, with its stylized forties vibe and clientele of chic, dissolute waifs. She crimped the models’ hair, put them in brightly printed opaque tights and Cuban heels, then sent them out in colorful cardigans paired with flared skirts, suits enlivened by velvet trim, floaty ruffled printed dresses, and lingerie looks like bed jackets and lace-trimmed satin skirts. Restraint? What’s that? There were lamé boots, lamé gloves, lamé jackets, and lamé trim on her boot-cut jeans. She kept the accessories crew busy, loading each look with gold chains, wrapping leopard belts over jackets and coats, and pinning lots of brooches to lapels. It could easily have been discordant, but under Sui’s guidance the result was a burst of much-needed cheerful noise.
