After a decade in the Aussie fashion industry, Sydney designer Anna Hoang knows a thing or two about understated minimalism. Her label Anna Quan has become synonymous with strong, elevated tailoring and laid-back, ribbed knitwear – something she never anticipated. “It wasn’t intentional to be a knitwear person,” Hoang tells Broadsheet. “I had one bad experience with knitwear and then just didn’t do it again for years [until] the world ended in March 2020.”
This season, Hoang introduces denim to the repertoire as part of her Resort ’25 collection. It’s a celebratory range with plenty of texture through bright yellow lace, blush tweed and a party-ready ruffled polka dot fringe. And for its loyal knitwear fans, there’s a new, lighter-weight cashmere made for travel.
We sit down with Hoang to chat through the new collection and what it feels like closing in on 10 years in business.
Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to running your own fashion label.
I studied at Fashion Design Studio in Sydney and I didn’t really formally work for anyone else. I had done a bunch of internships and then I started my own business. Prior to that, I did a degree in journalism and law but decided I wanted to study design instead.
It’s Anna Quan’s 10th anniversary this year. What’s it been like seeing the brand grow and evolve over the last decade?
It’s so funny because obviously it’s been a long time, but it doesn’t feel like a long time. The way the fashion cycle works, you start off doing one collection a year when you [begin] as a designer. It’s kind of weird because you’ve been around for a long time but because the lead time for designing is so long, it takes a while to see the evolution.
You make a lot of good moves, but you also make a lot of mistakes. You just learn from it and finally come into a rhythm that makes sense to the brand.
What can we expect from the Resort ’25 collection in terms of shapes, fabrics and detailing?
I always try to go back to what the brand is about: making every day special. So, there will be many everyday pieces. This year we’ve incorporated denim, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time … but it’s taken me a while to find suppliers that I think are doing it well.
We’ve also looked at investing in a lot of textures. There’s an electric yellow lace, and blush and porcelain tweeds. The last quarter of the year is really important when it comes to being celebratory – there’s a higher amount of going-out dresses – so we’ve got this fun ruffly polka dot, too. We’ve also got some lighter-weight cashmere knitwear.
How have you introduced denim into the range?
What we do is fashion denim. We have a small offering at the moment with three pieces [to start with]. There’s a pair of dark-washed pants that are slightly low-slung and can basically go with everything. I was examining what exists in the market and trying to think about what our point of difference is going to be. We have a minidress with really strong shoulders and an hourglass shape – it’s something different that I don’t think anyone else is doing.
What was your inspiration behind the collection?
Part of it is unresolved silhouettes from the past season. Another part is thinking about concepts that make sense to you. For this one, I was just looking at a water feature in a food court, and I was like, “I really like how the light is moving through that water. How do I bring that into clothing?”
When I think about summer and about holidays, obviously, for the Australian summer, it’s always about Christmas at the beach, water, fun and a sense of lightness, so that’s why we have a pastel-like texture moving through the collection.
Will we see any signature Anna Quan silhouettes coming back? How have they been updated?
I’m sure you’ve seen the [Penelope] polo dress, it’s everywhere! We’ve updated the colours for the holiday season so they’re a bit more celebratory and the palette is brighter.
What are some favourite pieces that you will be wearing on repeat?
At the moment I’m in Paris and I’m gravitating towards the cashmere knit because it’s super comfortable and warm but not sweaty. We also have this Italian stretch-cotton stripe shirt. It has inverted pleats, so you get a fitted look. The other thing I’ve been wearing is this top that looks like you wore a boob tube and a shirt together, but it’s one piece. We updated [this style] because it did very well in the previous season.
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This article first appeared in Domain Review, in partnership with Broadsheet.
