Anna Sui

“Every collection that I work on, I always think, Is this cool enough to wear to a concert?”

“I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit.”

“A piece of fabric can get me going.”

“I love punk, I love a lot of British Invasion bands, I love garage bands.”

“Fashion should be fun and accessible.”

“I love history. I love art. I like to mix it all together, but in the end it somehow has to all make sense.”

“I think I'm a global citizen. My parents came from China, were educated in France and emigrated to the United States. And I think that opened up my mind to be able to live and work anywhere.”

“I think whenever people talk about the 'Anna Sui woman,' they're talking about someone that's probably kind of more downtown, and there's always like this ambiguity: Is she a good girl, or a bad girl?”

“I don't have the luxury of making clothes just to make an effect. It can't be something totally frivolous, because my distributors have to have a successful season, too.”

“At the point when I wanted to become a designer, I didn't think about, 'Oh, but I'm a woman,' just like didn't think about like, well, 'I'm Chinese' or that 'I'm in Michigan.' You know, none of those things were obstacles to me. I just had this idea that this is what I had to do.”

“Longing and desire goes further than instant satisfaction. That's human nature.”

“I love research. When there's something that I like, I want to know everything about it. I want to know exactly what was behind it, and where it went from there.”

“I love going to flea markets especially when I am traveling, because I love seeing the stuff of other cultures, handicrafts and things with historical content.”

“I think about that all of the time and I have this fantasy that I am going to work at a museum someday! I would love to do something like that!”

“I live for fashion.”

“I think you have to be in the right place at the right time. And understand that and know when it is your time and how you react to it and how you respond to it.”

“When I started my own business, my main reason for designing clothes was that I wanted to dress rock stars and the people who went to rock concerts. It didn't go beyond that aspiration at that point.”

“Creating a book and creating a collection involve a lot of editing.”

“I just love the way the '60s rock stars put themselves together, because they were like dandies and peacocks. They really lived out their fantasies - and dressed their fantasies.”

“Every time that I wanted to give up, if I saw an interesting textile, print what ever, suddenly I would see a collection.”