    
Anna Sui springsummer 2003. TOP
LEFT: Black sequin athletic mesh football jersey, black-and-white
window-pane skirt. TOP RIGHT: Red
and yellow calico laminated jacket over poppy appliqué bikini.
ABOVE: White top with multi-colour
velvet ribbon appliqué, pink gingham embroidered skirt. ABOVE
RIGHT: Green striped ruffle dress. RIGHT:
Jockey intarsia vest, white voile blouse, black and white plaid
knickers. Nautica by David Chu springsummer 2003. CENTRE
COLUMN, LEFT: Sportswear: lightweight cotton parka with 100
per cent wool surface with unique membrane, sealed seams, and waterproof
zipper, blended woven fabric pant. CENTRE
COLUMN, RIGHT: Surfing or racing board shorts in cotton poplin,
spandex knit shirt.
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Custo and David Dalmau are brothers and collaborators
for Custo Barcelona. Switching from architecture and academia, the
new design team began studying the art of screen-printing and textile-finishing
processes during their early years in Spain. Screen-printed T-shirts
soon became available, appealing to the surf and hippie cultures
that influenced the brothers.
Focusing on colourful graphic designs with unique
imagery, their success has expanded into a full sportswear collection,
and they opened their first stores in Barcelona and Ibiza, then
Chicago, and in early 2003, New York City. As soon as the screen-printed
tops, trousers, minis, kimonos, bathing suits, boots and bags hit
the runway in New York recently, colour exploded in all directions.
The collection is a true homage to the colours of sunny Spain.
Anna Sui calls her collection ‘country club clothes’.
Using that description loosely and even jokingly, it serves as a
take-off point for clubby looks. Sui herself acknowledges that most
country-club types would never belong to the club she had in mind.
The collection has also been referred to as ‘Sporty Spice’. There
are tennis dresses with mesh tops, wrap golf skirts too short for
any golf course, silks emblazoned with an appliqué of a putting
green or an equestrian image. There are motorcycle boots, Frye boots,
tube socks and turbans made from T-shirts, insuring that most of
the country club set would probably lock their gates.
Sui herself acknowledges that
most country-club types would never belong to the club she had in
mind.
CONTINUED
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