If there’s anyone you want to call for advice on
what to wear for a night out, it’s designer Anna Sui. She would put you in a unique outfit guaranteed to stand out from the masses of LBDs, add a killer red lip and, no doubt, hook you up with access to the hottest party in town while she’s at it. She’s that girl.

Sui’s joie-de-vivre aesthetic has led the beloved New York-based creator of clothing and cosmetics to amass a global following of models, musicians and fashion insiders. Her unabashed embrace of youthful energy really comes alive in her makeup collections. Packaging is one part rock ‘n’ roll, two parts party playhouse. (This season saw bath sets shaped like shoes, an ornamental stained-glass travel mirror and bow-shaped eyebrow palettes.) "I think it’s important that every product we do looks like it came from my house, my designing room, my dressing table," she says when asked about her quirky cosmetics designs. "We try really hard to capture that world."

Sui’s signature beauty look is a bold red mouth (she wears Lip Rouge 460 from her collection), and it’s something she simply can’t do without. (
More beauty tips on wearing red lipstick here.) In 2002, Sui was staying at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, where her friend Sofia Coppola also happened to be filming
Lost in Translation. Coppola gave Sui a call and asked her to come downstairs. "I thought Sofia just wanted to say hello, but she put me in a scene with Scarlett Johansson," she recalls. "Afterwards, when I got back to my room, I looked in the mirror and realized that I didn’t have any lipstick on! I couldn’t sleep that night. I thought, ‘My God, what am I going to do? I’ve spent my whole life creating an image with red lipstick and the first time I’m in a movie…no lipstick?’" Luckily, she adds with a laugh, the scene didn’t make the final cut.

Aside from Anna’s favourite makeup product, find out what her makeup and beauty tips are on the next page…

The necessity of lipstick aside, one of Sui’s makeup mantras that you should definitely latch on to is that women shouldn’t overthink things-keep it entertaining and have fun. "Why not have a little fun with it?" she says. "I met an older woman at one of our counters a little while ago, and she said, ‘I just came back from the dentist. Could you give me a little glitter?’ She left so happy! That’s what it’s all about. [Makeup] gives you that bit of fantasy. If it makes you happy, why not?"

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