In the early 1980s, Anna Sui was a young fashion hopeful toiling, mostly unsung, on Seventh Avenue, her look largely influenced by the style and the music of the London youth quake. Flash forward a decade, and a chain of lucky circumstances introduced the Chinese-American designer to her first brush with fame.

Here, on the day of her show at Skylight at Moynihan Station, Ms. Sui, 51, reminisces about that period, and the baby-doll dress that ignited her decades-long career. She will bring back that look, a hybrid of a London dolly bird and a New York fairy princess, this spring.

Did the industry itself in those days bear any resemblance to what it is now?

It was the early ’90s, probably before the fashion week tents went up in Bryant Park. Fashion was so different then. It wasn’t like you had to look in a million places to find it. Elsa Klensch had her show on CNN, and everybody watched it. It was a much more condensed viewing experience. A young designer could get noticed.

Photo: lace bridesmaid dress

What about the art and music scene of the time most vividly affected you?

There was a certain something in the air; it was the whole grunge period at its height. My friends and I were listening to Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana — all those alternative bands. Fashion and MTV were kind of closely intertwined. Courtney Love was on the covers of all the magazines.

I think it was a combination of those girl bands of the time, Babes in Toyland and Hole, and the way the concertgoers were dressing — they were going back to their childhood birthday parties — that most moved me.

That was when I did my first baby-doll dresses: they were either an English dolly bird look or fairy-tale princess, done in iridescent sequined organza. That was the look that changed things for me.

When did you know you had a hit on your hands?

Linda Evangelista wore one of those dresses to the couture shows. And I started getting calls from all the supermodels. It was, “Can I get a dress like that?” That’s what gave me the confidence to do my first show. It was 1994, the height of the supermodel time, an iconic moment when Linda, Christy and Naomi all came out on the runway in those baby-doll dresses.

Afterward those dresses became so successful that they were almost my whole business at that point. I was selling them in most of the major department stores. Barneys bought them. Sofia Coppola wore them. That was it.

I still always do that baby-doll dress in one form or another. To this day, it’s the most important part of my business.

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