As Alex Kuczynski gets ready for her 20th high school reunion, she decides to swing by Anna Sui to re-live the 80's. While we were still watching Sesame Street and playing with Jem dolls, Alex was gettin' down with hair dye and mixed tapes.

The store is a crazy assemblage of looks, sounds, ideas and smells that evoke for me an era when I dyed my hair pink one day and blue the next, wore vintage clothes one day and a man's suit the next and carried around a lunchbox packed with mix tapes.

But, those days for Alex, and in her opinion, for fashion, are totally over. She more or less loathes the store, Anna, and her line, but goes through the process of trying on these crazy clothes in the name of being a critical shopper. With The Violent Femmes playing in her head and The Sex Pistols playing in the store, Alex finally decides that though it's over the top, Anna Sui does have some kind of style thing going for her.

But, just not as stylish as Alex, who, because she is too fat for stretch pants, does not want to visit that 80's style ever again. The one size fits all lunchbox full of cassettes will never go out of style. Actually, we think Cindy Adams just picked one up the other day.

Journey Back to a Wild and Crazy Time [Alex Kuczynski, New York Times]