Anna Sui Madcap Heiress
Designer and Founder, Anna Sui, the brand's Fall/Winter 2025 Collection, “Madcap Heiress,” at the National Arts Club in New York City featuring 28 looks.
She raises a slim cigarette to her lips, barely inhaling, flirting with the illusion of it all. Aimlessly she gazes out the window, the people milling about below are small and indiscernible, fueled by need instead of desire. Pitying their reality, she counts no blessings, no, she was chosen. Augmenting her god complex with the smoke she makes dance and past lives of mink furs, she writes the poetry of each moment with tears that stain, dictating beauty as if it were love. They say you can’t buy happiness but what do they know about freedom?
For Anna Sui’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection, Sui immerses herself in the world of the madcap heiress; women who would come to inherit fortunes beyond belief, only to spend it on jewelry or men by their life’s end. Citing the likes of Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress, or Peggy Guggenheim, amongst others, Sui was drawn to their penchants for the luxurious alongside their lack of inhibition. Their unfettered tastes and reckless abandon, allowed them to live lives that were purely driven by fabulosity,
transcending the mundane to seemingly inhabit alternate realities altogether. In doing so, they defied expectations to be demure, to conserve, creating the pretense for a modern day fairy table. Alongside the real madcap heiresses looked to, Sui also referenced films like Bringing Up Baby, My Man Godfrey, amongst others, hinting at the fact life does indeed imitate art. Sui recognizes society’s collective yearning and need for an escape, extrapolating that these desires reflect a greater need for self-expression and inspired prerogatives, jovially answering this call with a will to dream.
Given Sui’s enduring reverence for and reference of all things fantasy, these madcap heiresses allowed her to weave together rich textures, fabrics, and faux furs into a collection with three distinct color stories: teals and greens, magentas and russet browns, and purples and black. Fabrics range from tweed-y plaids, heavy hammered satin, faux fur trims in Mongolian and leopard, lacy rayons, tye-dyed crushed velvets and more. Jewelry and accessories were also a focal point of reference given that heiresses like Hutton had a soft spot for jade and Guggenheim was known for her outlandish glasses. Sui worked with jewelry designer, Erickson Beamon to make the pieces look as real as possible, straddling glamour and irony alike as Sui’s madcap heiresses cheekily lollygag through their castles in the sky. For footwear, Sui worked with longtime collaborator, John Fleuvog, to create custom sneakers featuring a rubber sole in three colorways to mirror the respective color palettes, along with a knee-high leopard print boot, and three high-heel silhouettes including double strap ankle pumps, a patent Mary Jane and a buckle shoe with a rubber heel lift. Sui also worked with eyewear brand partner Mondottica on two, signature frames – that each come in four colorways – one featuring protruding rays stemming from a cat-eye silhouette, and the other is cast in the shape of butterfly wings, its front features laminated and beveled details and strass decoration.
Wealth, in the world of Anna Sui, is ultimately subjective. Sui knows this herself given her enduring love for vintage, long-preceding fashion's current obsession with it. In turn, for FW25 she also brings back fabrics from her own collection’s past (a rarity today), referencing her own archive, re-living the romance while showcasing the vastness of her world.
ABOUT ANNA SUI
Anna Sui is one of New York's most beloved and accomplished fashion designers, known for creating contemporary original clothing inspired by spectacular amounts of research into vintage styles and cultural arcana. Sui joined New York’s intensely creative cultural underground in the 1970s, forging important relationships in the worlds of fashion, photography, art, music, and design.
Anna Sui, a first-generation Chinese American, came of age in a suburb of Detroit, the career of Anna Sui is a classic American success story. “You have to focus on your dreams, even if they go beyond common sense. How could this young girl from the suburbs of Detroit become a success in New York? It was always that dream ,”she says.
Since her premiere runway show in 1991, Sui has produced eighty-four collections, and she remains at the helm of her independent brand. Her label has grown to include accessories, cosmetics, and fragrance, and she operates boutiques in the United States and Asia. Today Anna Sui has over 50 boutiques in eight countries and her collection and products are sold in 300 stores in over 30 countries.
About Mondottica Group
Mondottica is a true world citizen. From humble beginnings, the eyewear company now has offices and operations in Hong Kong, London, Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona, Delhi, Moscow, New York, and Sydney with a distribution reach that spans all continents. Holding the licenses for a wide range of lifestyle and fashion brands, namely AllSaints, Anna Sui, Cath Kidston, Christian Lacroix, Hackett London, Joules, Karen Millen, Maje, Pepe Jeans, Reebok, Sandro, Scotch & Soda, Ted Baker (worldwide except USA and Canada), United Colors of Benetton and Vivienne Westwood, ensures Mondottica is ideally placed to cater to a broad demographic of style-conscious consumers. As a participant in the United Nations Global Compact and the UN Global Compact Network UK, Mondottica is committed to aligning strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption and taking actions that advance sustainability and societal goals.
SHOW CREDITS
Models: Anna Robinson, Ava Shipp, Ali Dansky, Cristina Piccone, Freya Nutter, Ana Elisa, Sascha, Rajasalu, Gracie Rae, Heather Diamond, Jordan Daniels, Huijia Chen, Tess Breedan, Addison Soens, Peris Adolwi, Sasha Winter, Yue Gu, Mahi Kabra, Huijia Chen
Hair: Garren for R+CO Bleu Make-Up: Dame Pat McGrath
Anna Sui Cosmetics: Albion Anna Sui Fragrance: Inter Parfums Shoes: John Fleuvog
Eyewear: Mondottica for Anna Sui Jewelry: Erickson Beamon
Program Artwork: Michael Economy
Photography: Raoul Gatchalian Photography: Gerardo Somoza
Video: Thomas Concordia Production: Katherine Ensslen & LDJ Productions
Press: Gia Kuan Consulting
Original link:https://www.opticaljournal.com/anna-sui-madcap-heiress/