Detroit-born Anna Sui brings a 100-plus-look retrospective home to Cranbrook

Anna Sui grew up in metro Detroit, and this month her life's work comes home to the area where she was raised.

"The World of Anna Sui" opens October 21, 2026, at Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills and runs through February 28, 2027. It's a major survey of the designer's archive, pulling together more than 100 looks. Sui got her start with her first runway show in 1991.

Sui was born and raised in metro Detroit. Her influential career has spanned more than three decades.

Instead of walking visitors through the years in order, the show sorts the clothes into 12 recurring archetypes that appear throughout Sui's work: Americana, Androgyny, Fairytale, Grunge, Mod, Hippie/Rockstar, Nomad, Punk, Retro, Schoolgirl, Surfer, and Victorian.

The hometown connection goes past her birthplace. The exhibition includes Sui's 2012 collaboration with musician Jack White to design the black-and-yellow employee uniforms for Third Man Records. For the Detroit showing, those uniforms will be on view for the first time.

"Detroit is a music city, and that influence is visible throughout this exhibition," said Laura Mott, the chief curator at Cranbrook Art Museum, who adapted the show for the museum. It was originally curated by Dennis Nothdruft, head of exhibitions at London's Fashion and Textile Museum, where the exhibition debuted in 2017.

There's pop-culture range here too. Among the pieces is the Anna Sui Arcadia Blossom Babydoll Minidress worn by Olivia Rodrigo for her third studio album.

The thread Sui keeps returning to is the private world a young designer dreams up before anyone is watching. "For a young girl it all starts in her bedroom," reads her introduction to the show.

Cranbrook Art Museum sits at 39221 Woodward Avenue in Bloomfield Hills. Admission is free every Thursday, when the galleries stay open from 11am to 8pm. You can read the museum's full announcement of the exhibition here.