Media Advisory

February 16, 2010

WHAT: Anna Sui presents T-shirt in honor of Freer Gallery of Art's Peacock Room
WHEN: Wednesday, Feb. 17, 6 p.m.
WHERE: Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, New York, Bryant Park (Sixth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets)
WHO: Anna Sui, designer

Renowned American fashion designer Anna Sui has created a T-shirt to celebrate James McNeill Whistler's iconic Peacock Room in the Freer Gallery of Art. The T-shirt, designed by Sui with illustrations by Sara Schwartz, will be featured in Sui's fall 2010 line. Proceeds from the shirt will support the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler galleries to benefit and support the appreciation and study of Asian art and culture.

The shirt will be distributed to 250 guests at Sui's fashion show at 6 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 17, and will also be on view in Sui's showroom at 250 West 39th Street, 15th floor, New York City during Fashion Week (Feb. 11–18), where fashion retailers will have the first opportunity to see it and place orders for their fall 2010 lines. The public will be able to purchase the shirt through the Freer and Sackler galleries' shops and Web sites, Sui's showrooms and Web site, and additional retail stores in September 2010.

Sui's brand retails globally in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Among her many honors is the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, and a spot on Time magazine's list of this decade's top five fashion icons.

Sara Schwartz's artwork has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Korea Vogue and various teen magazines.

The Peacock Room, one of the most recognized and visited works of American art, is the only surviving interior decoration by the expatriate American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). Originally a dining room in a Victorian London townhouse, the Peacock Room was lavishly redecorated by Whistler in 1876-77 in a blue-and-gold peacock design that features a unique synthesis of Asian and European artistic ideas and motifs.