NY Fashion Week Spring 2010: Anna Sui Bids Farewell to Bryant Park’s Big Top

Anna Sui has always been vocal about fashion and commerce. She supported the big push to protect the Garment Center from city rezoning and greedy landlords, and she has been vocal about her disapproval of the move next year.

What move, you ask?

The BIG move of Fashion Week from Bryant Park to Lincoln Center, ALL the way to the Upper West Side, far away from the Garment Center. Anna is heartily disapproving, believing that it will be difficult to walk garments over from the Garment area where many designers are based, and difficult to send runners back and forth for last minute changes and additions.

So, in a seeming farewell nod to Bryant Park after 15 years there, Anna Sui’s Spring 2010 background was of circus tents that echoed the Bryant Park tents. Anna’s artistic backgrounds are always items of note, and this one was no exception. I can just imagine art assistants painstakingly hand painting this background and putting glitter on it. I managed to snap Anna as she came out at the end for a quick wave and hugs with family and friends.

The show’s themes revolved around circus, marching bands, cute wild animals and her trademark free-spirited, flowery, butterfly-clad, unapologetically hippie-prepster girl (in keeping with her Gossip Girl-themed collection for Target, which is a tad bit edgier). Some of my favorite pieces were cute menswear.

I’ve never been a humongous Anna Sui fan, but now I’m converted. Now I understand why her shows are so well-attended. Doo.Ri was a quarter empty, but Anna Sui was packed to the gills. Doo.Ri’s clothes may be more up my alley, but for a happening, a real event, Anna knows how to put on a rocking, exciting, superfun show. The (not-as-anorexic) models smiled (gasp!) – grinned, even, and seemed on the verge of winking or doing a finger wave. The music rocked. The crowd gabbed and whispered excitedly.

“Everyone says (my brand) is very girly, very feminine, but then there’s a hard edge to it where there’s a rock influence, sort of good girl, bad girl ambiguity,” Anna said in an interview at CUNY featured on Fora.tv. “I design more for a spirit of woman, not a certain age group.”

Three of my favorite looks:

Next to my friends and I, a camera crew filmed Olivia Palermo for MTV’s The City. Here she is below in red. I wouldn’t have noticed her to snap a photo if she wasn’t wearing bright red! Smart girl! (or smart producers/PR folks/wardrobe stylists…)

Anna’s show was so much more than the photos or videos can express.

I can tell you another reason why Anna’s models smile from ear to ear  … BECAUSE THEY WEAR FLATS!

That’s right, Anna Sui lets her models wear flats (and platforms that are flats in comparison to the evil spikes that parade down most runways). Anna must know the pain of wearing 5-inch stilettos in a way a male designer never could. I think the butterfly gladiators are amazing because while I don’t usually like butterflies, it’s not so incredibly outright obvious on these.

In Anna’s gift bags were jewelry boxes, glittery purple eyeshadow samples from her beauty line and samples of her new perfume Rock Star, starring the inimitable (despite attempts) Agyness Deyn. Thanks Anna, it was lovely and loads of fun! Can’t wait to see your butterfly gladiators, blue bow flats and purple striped platforms for sale in the spring!

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