Psst! Another Iconic Grunge Collection Is Back

Steff Yotka

Anna Sui Grunge

Chase Sui Wonders in a remade Anna Sui Spring 1993 dress.
Chase Sui Wonders in a remade Anna Sui Spring 1993 dress.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Losel Yauch in a remake of a dress originally worn on the runway by Shalom Harlow.
Losel Yauch in a remake of a dress originally worn on the runway by Shalom Harlow.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Yauch and Wonders styled their grunge looks themselves.
Yauch and Wonders styled their grunge looks themselves.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Yauch in a striped top-and-pants set based on one worn by Kristen McMenamy on the Spring 1993 runway.
Yauch in a striped top-and-pants set based on one worn by Kristen McMenamy on the Spring 1993 runway.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Wonders in one of Sui’s favorite pieces, an apron dress originally modeled by Kristen McMenamy.
Wonders in one of Sui’s favorite pieces, an apron dress originally modeled by Kristen McMenamy.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Wonders re-creates a look originally worn by Bénédicte Loyen.
Wonders re-creates a look originally worn by Bénédicte Loyen.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Butterfly embroidery, a Sui signature, dots this vest-and-pants set worn by Yauch.
Butterfly embroidery, a Sui signature, dots this vest-and-pants set worn by Yauch.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui
Sui still has the original jewelry from the Spring 1993 collection, worn here by Yauch and Wonders with the remade dresses.
Sui still has the original jewelry from the Spring 1993 collection, worn here by Yauch and Wonders with the remade dresses.
Photographed by Jeannie Sui Wonders / Courtesy of Anna Sui

By now you’re well aware that Marc Jacobs has revived his Spring 1993 grunge collection for Perry Ellis—and that celebrities like Rita Ora and Gigi Hadid can’t stop wearing it. But Jacobs isn’t turning back the hands of time alone. In honor of his reissue, he asked his longtime friend Anna Sui to bring back some looks from her own iconic grunge collection. Sold in Jacobs’s Madison Avenue pop-up shop and Sui’s Broome Street boutique, the pieces from the Spring 1993 season range from apron dresses to striped maxis. They’re modeled in these pictures by Sui’s niece Chase Sui Wonders and her niece’s best friend, Losel Yauch.

Fans will know that Jacobs and Sui’s relationship goes way back, making the fact that both designers landed on grunge ideas for Spring 1993—and are reissuing them together in the winter of 2019—all the more fortuitous. “We went to see Nirvana together at the old New York Coliseum,” remembers Sui of one of her earliest hangouts with Jacobs. Thinking back to 1992, when these collections originally were shown on the runway, she explains, “Back then, that’s how fashion happened a lot. It was just there, something definite in the air. Marc and I both were loving the music, knew those bands, and even went to concerts together. All the rock magazines that were out at the time had Courtney Love or Kurt Cobain on the cover. Those were the things that were probably on Marc’s inspiration board, too. Steven [Meisel] did that iconic photo shoot for Vogue with Kristen [McMenamy] and Nadja Auermann and Naomi [Campbell]. It was just that moment.”

It’s the authenticity of both Jacobs’s and her own grunge collections that Sui credits with making them popular 25 years later. “It wasn’t mainstream and it felt very special. . . . It was much more of a genuine trend and movement. These days it feels kind of fabricated, like this year it’s this, next year it’s that. It has more of a real feeling to it,” she says, noting that her niece Jeannie Sui Wonders, who shot the lookbook, and her models were instantly drawn to the archive pieces. “They were so into it. Losel came in wearing her Dr. Martens already. We just brought in the rack and they did the dress-up themselves,” Sui says.

It’s not the first time Sui has looked back at her archive either. Recent reinterpretations of iconic pieces have been sold through collaborations with Opening Ceremony and Urban Outfitters. But it has influenced the designer to think more deeply about her past in her runway ready-to-wear collections. For Fall 2019, she reveals that she will be citing her first-ever collection. “The first collection [I made] was very Pop and that’s something I’m very into right now, especially after I saw the Warhol exhibition at the Whitney,” Sui says. “I have been looking through some of the runway shows and my previous takes on those looks. I’m sure you’ll recognize some pieces when they come down the runway.” The redux is redux’ed!

Anna Sui’s Spring 1993 reissue is available at Marc Jacobs, 655 Madison Avenue, and at Anna Sui, 484 Broome Street, NYC.

Behind the Scenes of Anna Sui’s Wanderlust Spring 2019 Show:

See the video.