Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably noticed that the '90s are back in a big way when it comes to fashion. From "coquette core" to the grunge aesthetic, the designer Anna Sui can be credited with creating and defining many of the styles that we now associate with that golden era.

In an interview with Q's Tom Power, Sui says the resurgence of retro trends is a "natural generational thing," similar to the way she longed to wear the clothes of the '60s and '70s. But that's not the only reason she thinks we're so nostalgic for the '90s.

"I think the other thing that really rings true is that everything seemed more authentic," she says. "That's what's missing in a lot of what is influencing us today, is that genuine love or longing or desire of a look, a movement, a music movement, you know. Everything seems like it's kind of fed to you now [by algorithms]."

When Sui was coming up as a designer in the '90s, trends weren't mass-marketed and mass-produced, viral moments weren't planned or fabricated, and there were no social media influencers. "Back then, fashion wasn't as big a business," she says.

In fact, her first major career breakthrough wasn't the result of a targeted brand exposure campaign, but rather a surprise encounter during Paris Fashion Week in 1991. Sui and her friend Steven Meisel — the legendary fashion photographer whose work appeared in Madonna's groundbreaking book Sex — went together to the Jean Paul Gaultier show and stopped to pick up Madonna along the way. The pop icon just so happened to be wearing one of Sui's babydoll dresses and the paparazzi went wild.

Sui says the lack of authenticity she sees today is mostly fuelled by brands paying celebrities and influencers to wear their clothes. "I think people can see through it," she tells Power. "It's amazing when somebody genuinely likes your clothes and they're not just being dressed up in your clothes."

After Madonna wore Sui's dress, the designer held her first runway show and opened her first store in New York. It was around this time that she started to notice the seismic shift happening in pop culture, with alternative bands and indie filmmakers standing at the forefront.

"With my generation of designers, suddenly people were looking at us like, this is the new thing and this is what we're going to New York to see," she says. "There was suddenly such an interest in this new culture, in this new way of looking, this new way of listening, this new way of watching film…. I think that that's what really caught on with so much of the fashion audience."

For her latest collection, Sui has collaborated with Fluevog Shoes to rerelease her famous butterfly boots, which first appeared in her Spring 1993 collection. Originally, she had sourced the embroidered butterfly appliques from a shop in New York's Garment District that carried various deadstock fabric.

"There were just enough of them for our fashion show, and we never really produced these boots," Sui says. "So when the pictures appeared in my book, so many people said, 'Oh, where are these boots? Why can't I get these boots?' And so I always kept that in the back of my mind."