New York style legend Anna Sui talks taste

My personal style signifier is jet jewellery, which I’ve been obsessed with since I first visited Grays Antique Market in London. There was a seller called Allison Massey who specialised in jet, which is a variety of condensed coal, and she told me how it originated in Whitby in Yorkshire. I have antique jet earrings and necklaces that I wear a lot, and the last time I was in London I bought a French jet tiara, which is actually glass. Much of my collection is made up of carved roses, which has become a signature for my brand.

The last thing I bought and loved was a Prada Hawaiian print jacket from the SS14 menswear show. I love the dominance of the black and white, and the abstract print. This was one of my favourite collections – 1940s glamour done in a modern and casual way.

The place that means a lot to me is Tahiti. My father, whose family is from China, was born there, and I have quite a few relatives still living on the island. My grandfather and his brother started one of the first department stores there. Whenever I visit Tahiti my favourite thing to do, since I was a child, has been to look for mother-of-pearl and black pearls, which are abundant.

And the best souvenirs I’ve brought home are Yoku Moku cookies from Japan. I’ve been gifted these delicious cookies many times, and was also fortunate enough to design a version of the tins for The World of Anna Sui exhibition in Tokyo in 2018. My favourites are the plain butter ones in round or cigar shapes. 

The best book I’ve read in the past year is Erotic Vagrancy by Roger Lewis, about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I had seen the play The Motive and the Cue in the West End, which was about when Burton portrayed Hamlet, and of course I’m a huge fan of Elizabeth Taylor, so I was interested to read more about their relationship. All the reviews say it’s the best book written about them.

The one artist whose work I would collect if I could is John William Waterhouse. I love the Pre-Raphaelites, and I guess Andrew Lloyd Webber has really cornered the market for this style, but in the ’70s they were actually quite affordable because they weren’t what people wanted at the time. I like the series Waterhouse did with mermaids, and the sort of mythological women that he painted, like The Lady of Shalott.

Whenever I visit Tahiti I look for black pearls, which are abundant

My style icon is the model and actress Anita Pallenberg, whom I’ve always worshipped. When I was growing up in the suburbs of Detroit, I’d collect pictures of her from fashion or rock magazines to study what she was wearing. Eventually, I met her during the Mudd Club years, and we became friends when she interned at Marc Jacobs in New York. Later, whenever I would visit London, we’d go shopping, and I got to really see how she would put outfits together, mixing and matching styles with her own consistency. She wore a lot of black and white, very New Romantics style, as well as neutral colours because she was blonde. They would always look spectacular on her.

The best gift I’ve given recently was a wedding gown to my niece, Isabelle. It was a work of love from everyone in my design studio. We put together a compendium of her favourite Anna Sui designs, including a fishtail silhouette to reflect her obsession with mermaids, and lace sourced from Gelmor Lace, from where her mother also got the fabric for her dress. 

And the best gift I’ve received is a gorilla made of shrunken wool, from my nephew. He was in Rwanda and this toy caught his eye in one of the local craft markets. When I went to their house at Christmas, I saw it sitting on the table and I was thinking, “I hope this is for me.” 

I laugh at dry, ironic humour, like Paul Lynde on the game show Hollywood Squares. Or the Marx Brothers, especially Groucho. 

The last music I downloaded was by Al Bowlly, a popular British singer in the ’30s who did a lot of warbling. I used a lot of his music to create the atmosphere for my AW24 show, which was inspired by Miss Marple and Agatha Christie. I also started thinking about American music from that time. I always loved The Little Rascals, and there’s one episode where Alfalfa sings, “I’m In the Mood for Love” in a talent contest, which I also incorporated into the show. 

I have a collection of handicrafts that I’ve bought over the years from an antique market in Beijing. I’d buy them from one woman, whose shop was called Heaven Textile, who travelled the countryside finding handmade crafts. They were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, mostly embroidered and made of silk – everything from little dolls to baby hats and wall hangings. There are a lot of really beautiful handicrafts in China, but you see fewer and fewer of them now because people aren’t taking the time to make them.

I’ve recently rediscovered my old Seventeen magazines, which I have kept from when I was a kid. They’re where I learned a lot about British fashion, including Biba, designers like Mary Quant and Gerald McCann, and models Pattie Boyd and Twiggy. I’ve realised that I don’t have complete volumes, so my project is to go back and fill in the gaps. 

In my fridge you’ll always find condiments – a bottle of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, horseradish… anything that lasts a long time. Cooking was never my talent; my mum would try to teach me to make dishes that I liked but I could never absorb it – in one ear and out the other. I always have champagne too, because whenever I have people over for dinner they will bring a bottle, and I don’t really drink it.

The thing I couldn’t do without is shopping. Whenever I go on long global tours to promote fragrance or cosmetics, I get stir-crazy; the people I’m working with always say, “Why don’t you let Anna out to go shopping? She’ll be in a much better mood afterwards.” It’s always an escape – discovering something about a different culture or seeing things I’ve never seen before. I love the flea and vintage markets throughout Asia and London. London has the best vintage markets, in Chelsea Old Town Hall and Hammersmith, which usually have vendors from all over the UK.

The last item of clothing I added to my wardrobe was a classic Chanel tweed jacket, which I had searched for for a while. I finally found one on Vestiaire Collective; it has a black-and-white windowpane pattern with a contrasting braid down the front and on the cuffs. It’s actually a knitted construction, and when you touch it it’s as soft as a sweater. 

An object I would never part with is a coral ring, which belonged to my mum. She was a really big collector and had pieces of jewellery that people sent her from China, including this ring with carved roses set in gold. It’s my good-luck charm, and I always wear it on show days, although I keep it around my neck now because I’m worried someone is going to break it by squeezing my hand too hard. 

The beauty staple I’m never without is red lipstick, which I’ve worn most of my life. When I was a teenager, I had this really saturated colour that I’d buy from the five and dime store, and it would never come off. That was what I modelled the Anna Sui 400 colour on, which I’ve worn since. I was in Tokyo once when Lost In Translation happened to be filming, and Sofia Coppola asked me to be in a scene with Scarlett Johansson, which ended up being cut. I remember going back to my hotel room after and feeling so happy, and then remembering that I hadn’t been wearing lipstick. My whole life, I’d cultivated this image with red lipstick, and I forgot to put it on! I didn’t sleep that night. 

On my Instagram “For You” page I get served a lot of content around vintage textiles, trims and notions. My favourite accounts are @tinseltrading and @starchedandcrumpled.

My favourite building is Debenham House in west London, which is also known as Peacock House because the outside is tiled with iridescent blues and greens. Inside, nearly every fireplace and bathroom has William De Morgan tiles of mythological creatures. I actually have a fireplace in my house with the same tiles. You can see the house in a lot of movies, including the 1968 Elizabeth Taylor movie Secret Ceremony, where I first discovered it. 

My beauty guru is the hairstylist Garren. I first met him around 1990, when I was styling with Steven Meisel for Franca Sozzani, who had just started at Italian Vogue. Then he did my first fashion show in 1991, after which I finally got the nerve to ask him to cut my own hair. He’s old school, and everything is cut to lay very precisely, which is essential for my kind of hair where the bangs have to be done in a certain way. He’s legendary, and it’s wondrous to watch him work. @garrennewyork

The podcast I’m listening to is Invincible Threads by fashion designer Norma Kamali. It’s partly about wellness, and explores her theories about life and living. Last year she interviewed David Johansen from the New York Dolls, whom I used to go and see a lot when I first moved to the city. He was talking about how the band used to wear lots of clothes by Norma Kamali, including her Lycra pants, patent-leather waist-cincher belts and one-shoulder tops with black and white stripes, which I recall seeing a lot of at the time.

My favourite room in my house is my bedroom. It’s my escape, and it’s very atmospheric. There’s really beautiful peacock wallpaper, and a wooden bed from India, with carvings and art nouveau tiles. I also have a lot of mirrored furniture, which is hand-painted from the inside with flowers and other objects. My bedroom also has a television…

When I need to feel inspired I delve into books, movies and museums. One thing always leads to another, so I’ll see a painting that I love and look up the artist, then learn more about the time when the painting was done. Then I’ll start researching that, and understand all the other things that shaped it. 

My favourite websites are The RealReal or Vestiaire Collective, which I trawl most mornings. Usually it will be for something that I’ve seen somebody wearing, and it’s so crazy because they will often have what I’m looking for. For my AW24 show, I included all these vintage velour or tapestry Gladstone bags which I found second-hand. 

In another life, I would have been an archaeologist. I’ve always been fascinated with Egypt, and when I went there around 15 years ago it was amazing to see the whole process, discovering something from another time. I love that TV show Detectorists, which is about these guys who are obsessed with spending every weekend with metal detectors trying to find a hoard. 

The works of art that changed everything for me were by Warhol. When I saw the Marilyns, that was it. There have been great exhibitions about some of his earlier works, and I actually own one of them, a drawing of a shoe. I remember being intrigued by how he drew it, the quality of the line, and learning about his techniques, including how he painted with aniline dye.

The best bit of advice I ever received was from my dad. When I was in my early teens there was a dress I really wanted that I thought I couldn’t live without. I went to him crying about it, which I thought might sway him to buy it for me. He just looked at me and said, “Anna, there will always be beautiful dresses.” And I shut up so fast.