Anna Sui – Pre Spring/Summer 2016 Ready-To-Wear

For a designer like Anna Sui, the current ’70s boho trend is a gimme. It’s a look she can turn out, in varying iterations, without breaking a sweat—as evidenced in her Resort collection. The easy, engineered print dresses, floral maxi skirts, cropped flares, and kimono-style coats and dresses were predictable coming from Sui, but these are the kinds of things her customer is going to be looking for come November, and the designer nailed the vintage vibe perfectly. Her folksy, William Morris-esque prints were particularly appealing, and her short embroidered organza dresses were just the right mix of grungy and sweet. There’s an art to making retro-ish clothes look fresher than stuff scavenged out of a thrift shop bin; Sui is an expert at that, with a particular knack for the subtle, canny update. Her inventive prints, for instance, served to contemporize this lineup, and so, too, details like a little asymmetry here or a bit of lace or smocking there. The difficult-to-capture quality of these wares, though, was their attitude: There was an insouciance in this collection that made it feel modern, and a versatility to pieces like her throw-on dresses that resonates with the way women dress now. Sui’s clothes this season looked easy. That’s not an easy thing to pull off.