at home with Anna Sui

Last Friday, as a part of Metropolitan Museum of Art's lecture series, Anna Sui discussed her collection as well as how she dresses her new Manhattan abode. I wish I could come but I was in the office (..as an intern at Sui's Corp.) and a friend of mine fill me in with some brilliant stuffs.

Sui's collection of busts by Gemma Taccogna displayed in the study alongside furniture painted glossy black; the walls are covered in a chinoiserie paper, antiqued mirror and a taxidermy peacock. 

When it came to furnishing the apartment, she was influenced by two American style divas—cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein and interior decorator Dorothy Draper. The result is a magnificently mixed-up but strangely calming atmosphere that’s signature Sui. She had always been drawn to the furniture in Rubinstein’s Manhattan apartment, especially the sinuous, extravagantly carved sofas and chairs made by John Henry Belter, a Victorian cabinetmaker.

“I decorate like I do a collection, putting the familiar with the kooky,” says the designer, who dreams of creating a line of wallpapers and fabrics in her inimitable style. “I just like mixing up things I’m interested in.”

All in all it’s an inspired mingling of extravagant furniture, chinoiserie wallpaper, and vintage doodads whose sum-total flamboyance recalls the do-it-yourself glamour of the 1970s. “With two apartments, I can have dinner downstairs and drinks and dessert upstairs.” -Elle Decor