The first look was a lavender kimono edged in black lace, worn over a midi skirt, finished with a bamboo parasol. The women seated around the runway smiled before the second model appeared. Anna Sui had the room from the opening exit.
The show ran on Saturday afternoon at The National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. Sui titled her Spring/Summer 2027 collection Wonderment. Her show notes described the word as the moment of discovering something new and letting it pull you somewhere unexpected.
That is a fair account of how the collection came together. Sui has shown in New York for more than three decades, and she still designs for one recognizable customer. This season she gave that customer color, print and a great deal of handwork.
The source
The collection began with a painting Sui found by accident. She was turning through a 1970s issue of Vogue, hunting for an Avedon photograph of an Ara Gallant hairstyle. She landed instead on the walls of Justine Cushing, hung with work by Howard Gardiner Cushing.
Cushing was an American painter working around the turn of the last century, with a decorative, dreamlike hand. Sui took his palette and his sense of fantasy without lifting any single canvas. The search for one image opened into a whole visual world, which is the origin story she kept returning to.
The clothes
The early looks read bohemian. Pink printed mini dresses sat under sweeping matching robes. Apron crop tops arrived with crocheted hems and floral embroidery, styled over silver-studded denim. Ruffled eyelet blouses came with high collars and full trousers.
Print carried most of the weight. Sui layered stripes under silk, camisoles over tunics, capris beneath longer lines. The craft revealed itself up close, where digital embroidery met handwork on the same dress, the machine and the hand sharing one garment.
The evening looks turned up the shine. Iridescent paillettes ran down slip tops cut with matching skirts and small crossbody bags. Neon lace bralettes showed beneath corseted chemises. Silver sequin stars sat across the front of a black jersey halter dress.
Sui has dressed the same girl for thirty years, and every September that girl arrives a little changed.
The Splendid EditThe hair
The glam finished the argument. Models wore 1970s curls, crimped and mismatched, arranged in patterns that looked chosen rather than tidy. The reference ran straight back to Ara Gallant, the hairdresser whose photograph Sui had been chasing when she found the paintings.
New York Fashion Week, Spring/Summer 2027. Courtesy of Fashion PR Firm.
The room
There were covered, wearable pieces built for a downtown brunch. There were sheer maxi dresses worn over bright lingerie. The mix stayed on the side of play rather than provocation, which is where Sui has always kept it.
New York spent this season on returns, debuts and large American houses recalibrating their numbers. Sui did none of that. She showed a collection that looked like her own hand, made for the customer who has followed her for years. One guest, filing toward the exit, said she wanted to buy the whole thing.