Anna Sui
/ 20th Century Revivals
Design scholar Elizabeth Guffey observes in her book Retro: The Culture of Revival that revivals are occurring with greater and greater frequency, and increasingly draw on the not-so-distant past.

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"Twenty years after Kurt Cobain et al. brought the look to the forefront, dressing like a ragamuffin is back in fashion," announced Women’s Wear Daily in April 2012. The dirty flannels and disheveled thrift store clothing that characterized "grunge" fashion, born out of the Seattle rock scene in the early 1990s, influenced several mainstream designers, including Anna Sui. The Los Angeles Times observed that Sui’s take on grunge also featured elements borrowed from British fashion of the 1970s.

Anna Sui
Rainbow Grunge ensemble
Striped acrylic ribknit, olive silk, multicolored cotton, ceramic, metallic leather
Spring 1993, USA
The Museum at FIT, 93.70.1
Gift of Anna Sui