At The Parsons Table with Anna Sui

Alumna Anna Sui has a seat at the table, granting critical insights into her creative process. 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. Born in Detroit to Chinese immigrants, 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. Before the end of her senior high school year, she was accepted to Parsons School of Design in New York. After two years at Parsons, Anna styled with her friend Steven Meisel and designed for several sportswear companies before launching her first collection in 1981. Anna Sui's business continued to grow throughout the 1980s, and in 1991 with the help of her friends Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista she premiered her first runway show. Today Anna Sui has over 50 boutiques in eight countries and her collection and products are sold in 300 stores in over 30 countries. Anna Sui received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from The New School in 2017. PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN | http://newschool.edu/parsons Paul Goldberger is The New School University's Joseph Urban professor of design and the architecture critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. For 25 years he was the architecture critic for the New York Times where he won a Pulitzer Prize for architectural criticism in 1984. He has also been awarded the President's Medal of the Municipal Art Society of New York, the medal of the American Institute of Architects, and the Medal of Honor of the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation. He is the author of several books, including Why Architecture Matters, published in 2009 by Yale University Press, and Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, a collection of his architecture essays published in 2009 by Monacelli Press. In 2008 Monacelli published Beyond the Dunes: A Portrait of the Hamptons, which he produced in association with the photographer Jake Rajs. Paul Goldberger's chronicle of the process of rebuilding Ground Zero, entitled UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, which was published by Random House in the fall of 2004, and brought out in a new, updated paperback edition in 2005, was named one of the New York Times Notable Books for 2004. Paul Goldberger has also written The City Observed: New York, The Skyscraper, On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Post-Modern Age, Above New York, and The World Trade Center Remembered. THE NEW SCHOOL | http://newschool.edu Since 1919, The New School has been home to scholars, creators, and activists who challenge convention and boldly make their mark on the world. To celebrate this groundbreaking legacy, we are opening our doors to the public for a weeklong festival of innovative performances, talks, workshops, screenings, exhibitions, and more. Join us as we reflect on a century of world-changing ideas and together imagine a new kind of future. The Festival of New | https://newschool.edu/festival-of-new Friday October 4, 2019 6:00pm - 7:00pm Tishman Auditorium - U100 University Center - 63 Fifth Avenue