6A — Monday, October 12, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
EVENT REVIEW
Sui recounts her life
By CAROLINE FILIPS
Daily Arts Writer
The world of Anna Sui is ever-
evolving,
consistently
arresting
and above all, unlike any other. For
the past 34 years, the Detroit-born
fashion designer has absorbed the
intricacies of countless cultures
and rendered them wearable, an
approach best epitomized by her offi-
cial Instagram bio.
“I invite my friends around the
world to share a peak into my mind,”
it reads.
Last Thursday, a near-packed
Michigan Theater caught a glimpse
of Sui’s wordly psyche as she shared
her story of breaking into the fashion
industry, creating an enduring inter-
national brand and staying true to
herself. As part of the Penny Stamps
Speaker Series collaboration with
The Institute for the Humanities and
Detroit Creative Corridors Center
(dc3), Sui spoke in a conversation for-
mat with Detroit-based fashion styl-
ist Paulina Petkoski.
“We’re always happy when we
can find people from the area who
have gone on to find success,” said
Chrisstina Hamilton, director of the
speaker series. “She’s been so suc-
cessful internationally and across
markets.”
Hamilton prefaced the discussion
with a synopsis of the recent New
York Times article by Guy Treaty,
“When Fashion Shows Were Fun”
— a wistful recount of the industry’s
incipient years of playful spectacle, a
far cry from today’s over-commer-
cialization. And yet, Treaty applauds
Sui’s everlasting contingency on exu-
berance and lauds her as the high
point of New York Fashion Week.
“Today, the most fun is always to
be had at an Anna Sui show,” Hamil-
ton said. “Her collections take you on
a journey that’s unparalleled in the
fashion industry.”
Sui’s initial fashion fascination
is a familiar tale — a childhood
marked by lusting over the glossy
pages of fashion magazines, adorn-
ing bedroom walls with captivat-
ing snippets and industry profiles.
She recalled her formative years
as a time of obsession for all things
rock ‘n’ roll, television and of course,
fashion — inspirations that continue
to manifest into her collections.
“I think growing up in the sub-
urbs, I was just purely a product of
pop culture,” Sui said. “As a kid you
just think you have to find the magic
key and I think, from that point on, I
was really living my dream.”
Along with collaging her dream
world, Sui diligently researched
design schools and ultimately decid-
ed on Parsons School of Design in
New York City, where she mingled
with noted fashion photographer
Steven Meisel, who remains a dear
friend. Parsons also allowed her to
break into the industry by way of
eavesdropping.
“I overheard two seniors at Par-
sons talking about a job opportu-
nity when I was still a junior,” she
recalled. “It was with my favorite
designer Erika Elias’s line for Char-
lie’s Girls … so I took my portfolio
over to see her and I got hired.”
Under Elias’s strict direction, Sui
learned everything from sewing
techniques to drape work. To this
day, Elias’s mantra resonates — “if
you’re talking, you’re not working.”
“She would say, ‘just inspire me,
do what you want,’ ” Sui said. “She
was a really tough boss, but I learned
so much from her.”
Sui then went on to cultivate the
decade-long foundation of her first
collection. She took on various free-
lance jobs and spent seven years
working on men’s collections in
Italy, alongside bourgeoning design-
er Marc Jacobs.
“He was just a young kid obsessed
with fashion, the way I was obsessed
with fashion,” she said.
After an experiential education
within the industry, Sui debuted her
inaugural collection. Soon after, she
took her first trip to Paris to observe
Paris Fashion Week in action along-
side Meisel and a remaining slew of
stylish companions. During their
adventures, Sui and Meisel attend-
ed a Jean Paul Gaultier show with
Madonna — an experience that lent
her the confidence to keep pursuing
her craft.
“We got to the show and she
leaned over and said ‘Anna, I have
a surprise for you’,” Sui said. “She
opened up her coat and said ‘I’m
wearing your dress!’ That was one
of the big things that gave me confi-
dence.”
By 1992, Sui established her flag-
ship boutique in SoHo, the first of 50
eponymous edifices. The decorum
of red floors, purple walls, black lac-
quered furniture, paper maché dolls
and all things art nouveau became
longstanding Anna Sui motifs.
Though Sui’s work ethic speaks
volumes to her success, she insists
that a majority of her business ‘just
happened’. Though it wasn’t always a
straightforward path.
“Practically every penny I made
went right back into the business,”
she said. “As the business grows, you
need more capital. It’s a hardship
worrying about money all the time.”
She also refers to 2008’s finan-
cial crisis as a reality check for
the fashion world, but believes
it prompted an era of analyzing
and strategy planning in the ever-
changing industry.
Perils aside, Sui believes she has
the best job in the world. Her knack
for translating any facet of the cur-
rent zeitgeist, whether it be modern
phenomena or her recent travels, is
positively uncanny. She absorbs the
essence of everything from Victo-
rian cowboys to her recent Tahitian
travels and stunningly refracts it.
“I think the thing I love most is
the research, it’s kind of like my con-
tinuing education,” she said.
To those aspiring a fashion-centric
career, Sui stressed the importance of
travelling and the willingness to relo-
cate, two markers of her own career.
Her idiosyncratic aesthetic has also
helped her elevate her business.
“You can never tell if it’s for a good
girl or a bad girl,” she said. “I think
that’s part of the appeal.”
For those who were unable to
attend the lecture or Sui’s tropical
SS16 show in New York, a sample of
her distinctive clothing is on display
at the Detroit Historical Museum as
part of the Booth-Wilkinson Gallery
exhibit, Fashion D.Fined.
‘AHS’ still not boring
ALBUM REVIEW
By DREW MARON
Daily Arts Writer
Say what you will about
“American Horror Story,” but it’s
never been boring.
With
“Hotel,”
the
horror anthol-
ogy once more
stages an all-
out
assault
of every con-
ceivable
vice,
repression and
dirty
thought,
even if the final
product
isn’t
perfect.
Though the show has yet to
achieve the poetic transcen-
dence of the grotesque that
elevated “Hannibal” into a mas-
terpiece, it nonetheless creates a
fascinating universe. Like all of
“AHS,” “Hotel” is undoubtedly
heightened, painting its world
with distorted lenses and a dark,
velveteen-hued palette.
“Hotel,” like its predecessors,
relishes in the perverse. The
look and feel of the Hotel Cortez
— the true main character of the
show — can best be described
as a fetish club, operating in an
alternate dimension and run by
the staff of the Overlook Hotel
from “The Shining.” If “Hanni-
bal” was about making the grue-
some seem beautiful, “Hotel”
defiles the sacred, daring the
viewer with sadistic glee to keep
watching.
“AHS” is not pleasant, and
many viewers will likely be
turned off by the show’s utter
lack of compassion. It’s also a
little hard not to be distracted
by Lady Gaga, who never really
disappears into her character to
the extent of someone like Denis
O’ Hare (“True Blood”). Though
viewers will come for Gaga, but
it’s character actors like O’Hare
who give the show its sense of
identity. The “AHS” regular
plays a cross-dressing front desk
worker named Liz Taylor, who
leaves as equal an impression
silently reading a copy of “Ulyss-
es” as Gaga does in entire scenes
of dialogue. The rest of the cast
seems to be retreads of charac-
ters from previous seasons, but
the amount of fun Kathy Bates
(“Misery”), Lily Rabe (“The
Whispers”) and Sarah Paul-
son (“12 Years a Slave”) have
onscreen is infectious.
The majority of the story is
beyond insanity, and it’s this
commitment to the absurd that
saves the show. Falchuk and
Murphy’s style is like “Twin
Peaks” and “Rocky Horror Pic-
ture Show” had a baby that
was adopted by horror direc-
tors Dario Argento and James
Wan. The whole thing’s so pulpy
and melodramatic, yet so oth-
erworldly, you forgive it for its
transgressions, at least for now.
The problem with “AHS”
always ends up being its prog-
ress as the season goes on. Sea-
son one is often praised for being
tied, even if by a thread, to the
reality of the present. However,
despite some of the hate thrown
at it, season two (“Asylum”)
remains the most memorable.
It was this season that threw
out the preoccupation with the
real world and delivered some-
thing that felt more like music,
with characters being played
like power chords rather than
human beings.
Edward Sharpe live
By REGAN DETWILER
Daily Arts Writer
In my head, Edward Sharpe &
the Magnetic Zeros aren’t just a
band, but actually a nomadic tribe
that
travels
from fantastical
forest clearing
to
fantastical
forest clearing.
This is where
they make their
music
circles,
and I picture a
lot of handmade
percussion
instruments
floating in the
air
around
them and that
they’re
mysti-
cally
glowing
orbs of light. No
one has show-
ered in months,
so everyone smells like a mixture of
body, river water (that they bathe in)
and wildflowers (that they sleep in),
and this is exactly how it should be
— the inevitable outcome of this life
that can be chaotic and hectic and
also undeniably beautiful, as long as
we stay in it together.
In fact, they aren’t just a band;
they’re a music collective made
up of two core musicians, founder
Alex Ebert and Jade Castrinos, and
up to 12 other members. Whether
this qualifies them as a tribe or not,
it seems to go without saying that
their music is basically made to be
played live, which is why their latest
release, Live In No Particular Order:
2009-2014, is absolutely a dream.
It takes songs from all three of the
band’s albums, played from 2009,
when their first album came out,
to 2014, after their third and most
recent album came out.
My first particularly memorable
encounter with Edward Sharpe and
the Magnetic Zeros was in 2010; I’d
just started freshman year of high
school and the group’s debut album
Up From Below, featuring the uni-
versally beloved “Home,” had come
out a year earlier. Knowing this
song had gained the confidence of a
junior I idolized — she was alterna-
tive, cool, but unbelievably open, and
seemed to always be in touch with
the real magic of life: love and com-
munity. She seemed to emanate the
Ed Sharpe mindset, taking a gap year
between high school and college to
live in a sustainable farm community.
I found it no surprise that her
Spotify profile showed her listen-
ing to Live in No Particular Order at
the same time I was, the day it was
released.
The album opens with “Better
Days,” a track from their most recent
album, unexpectedly titled Edward
Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. This
song is a nod to hope and should
be everyone’s go-to on a bad day. It
speaks of how we all go through bad
times, but what the hell: “down with
history, up with your head,” because
“we might still know sorrow, but we
got better days.” For me those words
mean we got better days in the sense
that we got days actually better than
the ones we’re living now, but also
that we got this song, “Better Days.”
In this sense, even if the future
doesn’t look up right away we have
this song, music itself and the ability
to feel with others.
Up next is the only record-
ing from 2009, an NPR Tiny Desk
recording of “40 Day Dream,” which
is the first track on their first album
— a little celebration of beginnings
and a drop of honey for longtime
fans who can appreciate the context.
Then there’s the famed “Home,”
which has over 100 million plays on
Spotify and which the group man-
ages to perform four years after its
release with just as much zealous
love and enthusiasm as if they were
singing it live for the first time. They
do this despite the fact that the rela-
tionship between Jade and Alex
eventually ended; now, instead of
being romantic partners, the two
are simply great friends and artistic
partners. This time, during the part
of the song where Jade and Alex usu-
ally tell the story of Jade falling out
of Alex’s window and he was falling
“deep, deeply in love,” the pair had
members of the audience come up
to the stage and tell their own sto-
ries of being home whenever they’re
with one another, whether the love
is romantic, platonic or familial.
The last actual song on the live
album is “All Wash Out,” which
is the closing song of their 2012
album Here. It’s a solid minute-and-
a-half longer, the time filled with
added harmonies and hums from
both Jade and other members of
the band, and also with a final clap
session from the crowd to go along
with the gentle beat of the song.
Dreamy instrumentals are made up
of gentle strums on both the acoustic
and electric guitar, trumpet, piano
and a variety of drums, snaps and
whistles. The added vocals and the
already multilayered instrumentals
(all played live) contribute to the
communal feel of the song and the
entire album thus far.
Though much of the group’s work
focuses on maintaining hope and
lightheartedness through the chaos of
life, a lot of onerous and intense emo-
tion has obviously gone into creating
all of this music, showing that the
musicians may not only be remind-
ing listeners to stay uplifted, but
reminding themselves as well. It
only seems appropriate that this last
song tells us to “let it all wash out ... in
the rain.” It’s as if the musicians are
telling themselves to let themselves
be cleansed of the emotion in all of
those live performances, but also
telling their audience to do the same.
This sense of togetherness is
perfectly encapsulated in the last
track, which isn’t a song but simply
a recording of a collection of noises,
voices, accidental strums and nudg-
es on the drums that were filling
the air, presumably before or after
a show. It’s called “All Together –
Live,” and is the only track without
a time or place in its title. Instead it’s
simply about being together at a live
performance: the band, the audi-
ence, all together.
A+
Live in No
Particular
Order:
2009-
2014
Edward
Sharpe & the
Magnetic
Zeros
Community
Music Group
B
AHS: Hotel
Season 5
Premiere
Wednesdays
at 10 p.m.
FX
FILM REVIEW
‘Malala’ nothing new
By MADELEINE GAUDIN
For The Daily
“This is Malala Yousafzai,
she is the naughtiest girl in the
world.”
The teenage
activist’s
brother
says
this to tease
her,
but
for
some in her
home country
of
Pakistan,
the sentiment
holds
true
—
she
was
“naughty”
enough to be
targeted by the Taliban. Malala
became a household name in 2012
when she was shot on her way to
school, following a decision by
Taliban leaders outlawing the
education of girls. Since then, she
has become a leading advocate
for human rights and equal
education for women. In 2014, she
became the youngest recipient of
the Nobel Peace Prize. Through
numerous television appearances,
speeches, and her autobiography
“I Am Malala,” the generalities
of her story have become well
known in the Western world.
Davis
Guggenheim’s
(“An
Inconvenient
Truth”)
latest
documentary, “He Named Me
Malala,” tries to break past the
public image of “Malala” to
the teenage girl underneath.
However, the film comes across
as an hour and a half episode
of “60 Minutes,” scratching a
surface that has already been
scratched. Malala is powerful,
and the work she is doing for girls
around the world is inspiring,
that seems to be all we get from
the film.
Malala’s relationship with her
father is central to the film and
provides the possibility for some
more depth and provocation.
The film’s title alludes to the
formative
role
her
father,
Ziauddin Yousafzai, plays in her
activism. In Pakistan, Yousafzai
was a school owner and education
activist, who, as we learn in the
opening animated scene, named
his daughter after a woman who
used her voice to inspire her
country to fight for what they
thought was right. He was a vocal
activist for education equality
in Pakistan, making it on the
Taliban’s list before his daughter.
The question looming over their
relationship is: How much did
her father influence, or even push,
her into this type of activism? It’s
a question hinted at and skirted
around
throughout
the
film.
The pursuit of its answer would
provide “He Named Me Malala”
with the depth it so desperately
needs.
What Guggenheim does capture
is the stark contrast between
Malala’s age and her role in the
world. In one scene, she is shown
laughing at clips from “Despicable
Me” on YouTube, but is interrupted
by a phone interview in which she
is asked about death threats from
the Taliban. Minions and murder
aren’t supposed to exist in the
same world, but for Malala they
do. What is the toll of her type of
activism? We know Malala suffers
physically for her beliefs, but is
she suffering emotionally as well?
The film hints at these questions,
but unfortunately decides not to
answer.
Guggenheim isn’t one to shy
away from controversy in his
films. His 2010 film “Waiting
for Superman” criticized the
American Public School system
by
asking
tough
questions
and
seeking
answers.
“An
Inconvenient
Truth”
sought
to find the, well, inconvenient
truth about global warming and
greenhouse gases. Both films
prompted debate and discussion
in a way “He Named Me Malala”
does not. Perhaps that is because
Guggenheim’s
latest
film
is
targeted at a different, younger
audience. He seems to spend a
good amount of time telling the
audience, “Hey, look, Malala is
just like you!” She fights with
her brothers, she teaches her dad
how to tweet and she even fails
the occasional biology test. In
that way, “He Named Me Malala”
works as a YA documentary,
aimed at an audience too young
to already know her story.
“He
Named
Me
Malala”
provides a wonderful role model
for young audiences, but doesn’t
give many answers for viewers in
search of the human behind the
media phenomenon.
FOX SEARCHLIGHT
We can’t say anything mean! Malala is too good!
“Malala
Yousafzai is the
naughtiest girl
in the world.”
TV REVIEW
B
He Named
Me Malala
Fox Search-
light
Michigan Theater