Still, I would not be the first person to see sexism in how long it took the industry to appreciate your work.

Do you think?

How emotional was it to take this long retrospective view?

For so many years, I never looked back. You don’t have time when you’re designing all these collections. And I found the sad thing about putting together the exhibition was that when I looked at all those clothes, what I thought about is how all these companies that made them are gone. The garment district has disappeared. There used to be so much within a couple of blocks of my office on 39th Street: the trimmings people, the buttons people, the zippers guy plus all the patternmakers and contractors. It was heartbreaking to see that all the fabrics we were using were made in America. We had the most incredible textile industry, and so much of it is gone.

Didn’t the garment industry also function as a creative resource?

I used to walk around and ask the fabric stores to let me go into the basement to look for old stock. There was a company, Plitt Segal, that had been around since the 1940s. They made velvet, but it was very stiff. So I once asked the owner, Jules Segal, why he didn’t sell velvet that was limp and soft like old-fashioned velvet. “We call that coffin velvet,” he said. “What we have to do is wash it.” So I took some home and washed it in the washing machine. They still make it, though he’s long gone.

Did the internet replace all that?

Yes and no. You can never replace the garment district. But for our last show, I wanted these anime wigs that I saw kids wearing online. We Googled them, and another whole world opened up.

The World of Anna Sui

Through Feb. 23 at the Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, Manhattan; 212-299-7701, madmuseum.org.