Click here to subscribe for free<\/a>!<\/p>\nLa Nuit de Boh\u00e8me doesn\u2019t just describe Anna Sui\u2019s latest fragrance; it also pretty much sums up the fashion designer\u2019s ultra-fabulous career. From famous friends to bold designs to her signature red lip, Sui is the sum of parts\u2014a glittering past laced with a sense of adventure, a creative spirit who doesn\u2019t shy away from statement looks. She\u2019s like a storybook heroine, only her story doesn\u2019t begin in some faraway land.
\n Born in Detroit, Michigan, the now fashion icon moved to New York City to attend Parsons The New School for Design at age 18.
\n Although Sui launched her first fashion collection in 1981, she held her first runway show in 1991. Since then, she has become known for her bohemian and retro fashion looks, she has designed for Madonna, written a book and introduced a successful beauty line. In 2009, Sui deservedly won the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America\u2019s Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award.
\n \u201cI\u2019m really lucky that everything I\u2019m interested in, everything that I\u2019m curious about and want to research, I can use in my work,\u201d says Sui. The designer\u2019s love of glamour is seasoned with hints of classic rock, art nouveau prints and art deco style\u2014she collects 1960s psychedelic posters and gets inspiration from the vivid decades of the past. Sui considers her close friend Anita Pallenberg, an actress, model and former girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, as one of her top celebrity style muses. \u201cI always loved The Rolling Stones and Anita was such an integral part of their legend. My favourite memory is how beautiful she looked in the movie Performance and in photographs of her from that period,\u201d Sui says.
\n In the fall of 1991, Sui made her mark on the runway with her debut runway collection. Today, she describes her first show as \u201cone of the giant breakthroughs in my career.\u201d The humble designer credits her friends in the fashion industry with helping her turn the show into a success story\u2014friends who included industry insiders such as fashion photographer Steven Meisel, NARS Cosmetics founder Fran\u00e7ois Nars, supermodels Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell, and celebrity hairstylist Garren. \u201cAll my friends came together to help pull everything together. I was very touched and it is my most moving memory,\u201d says Sui, reflecting on her label\u2019s earliest days.
\n As if the support of a group of fashion all-stars weren\u2019t already enough, Sui\u2019s breakout year actually started the season before her 1991 debut, with a stamp of celebrity approval from none other than Madonna herself. Sui had travelled to Paris with Meisel to take in the Ready-to-Wear shows for that fall. The designer enthusiastically recalls attending the show with Madonna. Once they were seated, the entertainer revealed a sartorial surprise. \u201cWhen we got to our seats, Madonna said \u2018Anna, I have a surprise for you!\u2019 When she opened her coat, she was wearing one of my dresses! I had seen racks and shopping bags in her hotel room from all the biggest, most prestigious houses\u2026and she chose to wear my dress!\u201d says Sui, recalling the touching moment with pride, and emitting a gratitude and awe that still seem fresh, despite her storied career. \u201cI was so flattered. If Madonna could pick from the best of the world and choose my dress, it gave me a little confidence that I might do a show one day too,\u201d Sui says.
\n Nevertheless, it took 20 years for Sui to achieve what she considers her favourite show: Spring 2011, which was inspired by the 1978 movie Days of Heaven, directed by Terrence Malick and starring Richard Gere and Brooke Adams. Featuring vintage-style sunglasses, crochet shawls and suede motorcycle boots with an urban bohemian twist, the collection\u2019s looks exhibited a passion for the American prairie, including quaint accessories such as crowns crafted from corn husks.
\n While the cinema of the 1970s clearly influenced this fierce and flamboyant collection, it has also left an impact on Sui\u2019s love of bold beauty, which is on full display in the designer\u2019s cosmetic line, launched in 1997. Sui cites actress Liza Minelli\u2019s look from the 1972 drama musical film Cabaret as a key inspiration. \u201cI loved the adorable way Liza Minnelli was done up in the film, with her iconic widow\u2019s peak bangs, pale skin, false eyelashes, beauty spot and green nail polish that she called \u2018divine decadence.\u2019 That look sort of became iconic for me,\u201d says Sui, whose latest launches include the new lip colour range Lipstick G, set to launch this month with four girlish shades (Powder Pink, the slightly darker Paris Pink, a rich Rose Pink and the deep Valencia).
\n With a dazzling array of runway collections inspiring everything from wardrobes to makeup, what better way to showcase all these memorable looks than by publishing an Anna Sui fashion tome? The idea for the book came from wanting to visually represent the inspiration behind her designs. Encouraged by Meisel, who also wrote the introduction, the self-titled book hit the shelves in 2010. (Musician Jack White of The White Stripes also penned a \u201ccharming preface\u201d to the book.) The book includes essays by Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton, runway photos and a closer look at Sui\u2019s edgy design process. The designer calls the publication of the book one of the most rewarding moments in her enviable career. \u201cThough a book idea had been bouncing around my head forever, I had never really explained my thought process to anyone, what actually goes into the development of each collection,\u201d says Sui.
\n She also recently launched two new fragrances this past fall. With notes of bergamot and citrus fruit, her fragrance Sui Dreams is inspired by the shape of a woman\u2019s handbag and features a bottle created by German packaging designer Peter Schmidt. Sui\u2019s La Nuit de Boh\u00e8me, on the other hand, is a glamorous evening fragrance with top notes of champagne citrus, midnight blackberry and golden delicious apple. The launch of La Nuit de Boh\u00e8me follows Sui\u2019s popular 2013 scent La Vie de Boh\u00e8me. Living up to its name, La Nuit takes perfume lovers into the night with shimmering gold packaging and art nouveau inspired design. \u201cWhen that same woman goes out at night, she turns into a fairy tale princess, all golden,\u201d says Sui. If the designer\u2019s fairy-dust past is anything to go by, it sounds awfully familiar. After all, there\u2019s always something exciting on the horizon when you\u2019re living \u201cla vie de boh\u00e8me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La Nuit de Boh\u00e8me doesn\u2019t just describe Anna Sui\u2019s latest fragrance; it also pretty much sums up the fashion designer\u2019s ultra-fabulous career. From famous friends to bold designs to her signature red lip, Sui is the sum of parts\u2014a glittering past laced with a sense of adventure, a creative spirit who doesn\u2019t shy away from statement looks. She\u2019s like a storybook heroine, only her story doesn\u2019t begin in some faraway land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":89548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287],"tags":[158,32139,443,25947,205],"class_list":["post-89547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-anna-sui","tag-anna-sui-interview","tag-designer-interview","tag-designer-interviews","tag-real-style-magazine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89549,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89547\/revisions\/89549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.realstylenetwork.com\/fashion-and-style\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/12\/AnnaSui.jpg\")
<\/p>\n