Everyone in underwear was there.

Everyone in the underwear business, that is, was at the Pier 60 ballroom last night. It was, after all, the night the intimate apparel industry salutes its best and brightest, a fete on par with the Emmys — the glittering, glamorous 32nd annual Femmys.

Okay, so maybe it’s not quite on par with the Emmys. Believe me, even the Emmys wouldn’t be the Emmys without these wizards of lift, separate, then lift some more. These are the folks who toil each day to improve the brassiere as we know it. And panties, too.

“We’re changing a lot,” the vice president of merchandise at Vanity Fair Brands, Berna Goldstein, said as she mingled among her fellow undergarmentos. “Right now, technology is driving the bra business, making things lighter, breathable, comfortable.”

Indeed, one of the evening’s honorees — the president of Elastic Fabrics of America himself, Jim Robbins — said his company is working on new fabric that will stretch even further and snap back even tighter. That’s the holy grail of what’s known as “shapewear” (and used to be known as “foundation garments,” a word now as offlimits as the “G” word: girdle).

Another innovation Mr. Robbins is embracing is fabric-based underwear moisture control. But … maybe let’s not get into that. Also up-and-coming, he said, is antimicrobial underwear. But … let’s not get into that either. Let’s get back to the gala.

It was sponsored by an industry group called the Underfashion Club, which raises scholarship money for young people studying the design, manufacture, and marketing of intimate apparel. The club invited nine of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s top lingerie students to show off at the event.

One of the students, Candice Guttman, said she can recall the very day she knew her future contained corsets: “I saw ‘Cabaret’ when I was 7.”

“I just really like dealing with silk and velvet and lace,” another student, Jennifer Ostroski, said. “My mom always tells me to design for her.” (Mrs. Ostroski, stop reading NOW). “She says, ‘Lift my boobs up!’ But that’s not what I’m going for. I’m going for elegant and breathtaking.” (Mrs. O., resume your reading and don’t feel bad. Your daughter is very talented.)

In fact, all of the students’ work was heartbreakingly gorgeous. With any luck, they’ll have careers as long and fulfilling as Roslyn Harte’s.

“Sixty years!” Ms. Harte said. That’s how long she’s been a designer. She started out in nighties and then switched to bras — a lucky move, she said, because nightgowns are in freefall. Everyone’s sleeping in sweatpants.

So are bras in freefall now, too?

“Hell, no!” the 82-year-old said. “Bras are more important than ever because cleavage is more important than ever. I get in the subway in the morning and I’m amazed and a little appalled at the morning cleavage.”

Then she toddles off to work to help America show it off some more.

God bless the undergarment industry. Each and every one of them deserves a Femmy.

(Except, perhaps, whoever let Mrs. Ostroski down.)