Anna Sui

Notable ancestors also include Fang Gongcheng, tutor of the imperial palace, and Fang Guancheng, Viceroy of Zhili seated at Tianjin from 1749 to 1768 amongst other Qing era scholars.

Her niece is actress and model Chase Sui Wonders.

By the time she was four years old, Sui knew she wanted to be a fashion designer.

Sui's mother taught her about putting together a wardrobe, bringing a young Sui with her to shop for fabrics.

Sui would spend hours watching her mother sew and would collect the fabric scraps to clothe her Barbie dolls and her brothers' army action figures.

Through this process, Sui learned the basics of making clothing and soon she was putting together her own outfits.

This was accomplished by buying pattern pieces for the sleeves of a dress, and swapping them to match other dresses, to create her own look for the garments.

As a teen, she read an article in Life magazine about the achievements of Mia Fonssagrives-Solow, who graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City and then moved to Paris, where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton opened a boutique with the girl.

Sui credits reading this article as a pivotal moment in her youth, which gave her clear direction on her goals for her future.

Sui moved to New York and attended Parsons.

After finishing her second year at Parsons, Sui was hired by Erica Elias' juniors clothing label Charlie's Girls, where she learned by designing for sportswear labels and doing styling on the photography shoots of friend and former Parsons' classmate Steven Meisel.

Sui's work as a stylist for Meisel's shoots featured in the Italian magazine Lei specifically were very well received.

After the closing of Charlie's Girls, Sui worked for several other sportswear designers including Bobbie Brooks and Simultanee.

During this time, she began designing and making clothes out of her apartment.

Sui stated that she was inspired to branch out on her own by a desire to dress rock stars and people who attended their concerts.

Indeed, during this period, the majority of her personal business was focused on targeting sales to music stores.

While working for the sportswear company Glenora, she brought her collection of five pieces to a New York trade show, and caught the attention of New York department stores Bloomingdale's and Macy's.

Anna Sui (born August 4, 1964) is an American fashion designer.

A few weeks later, in August 1979, those clothes were featured in a full-page Macy's ad in the Sunday edition of The New York Times.

The manager at Glenora, where Sui was still on the payroll, was furious when he saw the advertisement in the Times and fired her on the spot.

Left without a job, Sui took her $300 in savings and started a business out of a little corner of the living room in her apartment.

For several years Sui Ran the company out of her apartment, doing odd-jobs for spare income and reinvesting every penny of earnings into her business.

The 1980s was the height of "power-dressing", with companies such as Chanel, Lacroix and Versace setting the standard.

Sui struggled to stand up next to the big-name fashion houses.

Sui was one of the few designers of the period who distanced herself from the traditional fashion houses and explored the grunge fashion scene together with designers such as Marc Jacobs, Daryl K and Todd Oldham.

By the late 1980s, Sui had gained a global cult-like following, getting the attention of Japanese fashion powerhouses such as Onward Kashiyama.

Sui would go on to majorly expand Japanese operations in the mid 90s.

Around 1987, Sui got the opportunity to move her line into Annette B, a showroom curated by Annette Breindel.

Breindel, who had a history of nurturing young designers, was a major influence for Sui and helped the designer emerge onto the fashion scene.

During this period, Sui finally was able to move her operation out of her apartment and into the garment district.

At Paris Fashion Week in 1991, Sui received one of the first major breakthroughs of her career.

Sui was driving with her friend Steven Meisel to see the Jean Paul Gaultier show.

She was named one of the "Top 5 Fashion Icons of the Decade", and in 2009 earned the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), joining the ranks of Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Diane von Furstenberg.

Her brand categories include several fashion lines, footwear, cosmetics, fragrances, eyewear, jewelry, accessories and home goods

Sui is a second-generation Chinese-American born in Detroit, Michigan.

Her father, Paul Sui and mother, Grace Sui Fang met while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris where Sui's father was studying engineering and her mother, painting.

Her paternal grandparents were Xiao Yulan, a Tahitian-Chinese businessman, and his wife Qiu Daidi.

Her maternal grandparents were Fang Chih, a Chinese diplomat and his Japanese wife named Fang I-chih (born Masue Ueki).

Sui is a matrilineal descendant of the prominent Fang clan of Tongcheng, Anhui, notable for its many scholars and philosophers.

She is an 18th generation descendant of Fang Bao, an influential Chinese poet who founded the Tongcheng School of literary prose popular throughout the Qing Empire.