Norma Kamali: Norma Kamali (2021)

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/9351283f601f76f1

Hey everyone, it's Guy here. So this week we're pulling one from our archives. It's an episode with Norma Kamali, the legendary
An iconic fashion designer. So iconic, in fact, that recently she's been building an AI model of herself.
With the hope that her team can use it in the future to create new Norma Kamale designs based on her aesthetic. Also, if you want to hear more from Norma, she came back on the show a few weeks ago, this time on the advice line. So you can scroll back in the podcast queue to hear her give advice to up and coming entrepreneurs. It's
Another super fun conversation. But this episode
will blow your mind. It is an epic tale. It is a hero's journey.
Here is her first appearance on how I built this.
From twenty twenty one.
Well, I started to make
some things and I would put them in the store to see how they would do and they would do really well.
And so
the majority of the stock slowly became my
designs and I had a full page in Vogue and I had a good
size page in Bazaar and that was beyond
Yeah. Belief because I thought somebody is gonna find me out. I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. And I have a full page in b in vogue and bizarre. This is nuts. Like
I don't have a clue.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.

I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today.
How Norma Kamali built a fifty-year career around hot pants, sleeping bag coats, and a Fara Fawcett swimsuit.
and helped usher in the era of American fashion design.
Starting a brand and then scaling it fast.
is hard.
The glasses company Warby Parker was founded in 2010, and within five years
It was valued at over a billion dollars.
The suitcase maker, Away, was launched in twenty fifteen.
And by twenty nineteen?
Investors valued it.
At one point four billion dollars.
Both
Incredible achievements, and both incredibly rare achievements.
But what's just as hard, maybe even harder?
is to build a brand that endures, that lasts a long time.
Think Dell Computers and Southwest Airlines, or even Starbucks and Burton Snowboards.
All stories we've told on the show.
And this raises a question.
What does it take?
To last.
To build something that can withstand changes in culture or in technology or in lifestyle.
Well
In many ways, our story today
Answers that question.
Because fashion designer Norma Kamale figured it out.
She's been able to build a brand that your mom might have worn and that you'd want to wear too.
She's probably best known for creating the sleeping bag coat, but also helping to popularize hot pants.
shoulder pads for women, the all in one dress, and for designing the iconic red bathing suit made famous by supermodel Farah Fawcett,
A piece that is actually in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.
But this isn't just a story about someone with incredible staying power as a fashion designer.
This is you could argue.
The story of modern American fashion design.
Because
Back before, say, the nineteen sixties?
Design for the most part.
Happened in Europe.
To wear something fancy usually meant wearing Hermes or Chanel or Christian Dior, not Donna Karan or Ralph Loren or Calvin Klein.
And Norma Kamale was in the vanguard of young designers who changed all of that.
She grew up in the nineteen fifties in Manhattan in an immigrant neighborhood called Yorkville.
Her mother was Lebanese and her father was Basque.
When Norma was little, her parents split up.
And when she was thirteen
Both her father and her stepfather.
So Norma was mainly raised by her mom.
Who, according to Norma,
was an incredibly creative person.
My mother
always had an easel with oil paints where she was in the middle of an oil painting while she was cooking some incredible dish that she just created. She made costumes for the
plays that we had in the neighborhood for all the kids, but beautiful research costumes
And so I thought that that's what everybody
does. And so I was drawing very early. I was doing
Creative things.
F for as long as I can remember. And
It was great satisfaction for me.
And did you have
easels and and and canvases all over your house and were you constantly painting?
Hu actually no because the house was about two feet by three feet. So there there was just
Enough space, let's say really tiny space. So
in this neighborhood we had a community house that we would go to after school and that's where
I did a lot of painting and then
I enjoyed sitting by the river and sketching
It was such a happy place to just see
A beautiful view and being able to sketch it.
Hm.
But when I
came time to go to college, um, you didn't go to art school. U instead you wound up
Uh
uh getting a scholarship to FIT, which is the the Fashion Institute of Technology, right?
Yeah, I decided on FIT
Because my mother was very clear.
That's it.
She didn't think painting was actually gonna help me pay the rent'cause she wanted me to know that she was not gonna help me pay the rent. So I I went to F I T to
see where that would take me.
But
You have to know that
I hated fashion because it was madman time, right? That girdles

Yeah. Cone bras, the whole thing and everything was matchy. This was the early this was like the early sixties.
Yeah, yeah. And I did not like that at all. I found it very restricting.
And I was obsessed with
Vintage films from the thirties and forties. So I was
already going into these sort of second hand stores. They weren't called
Vintage stores at the time. And I would find these
clothes and wear them. And I was just off the grid. Like nobody
got me and I
didn't study fashion, I didn't study pattern making. I studied fashion illustration with in uh I and this was
At the time there were actual
jobs that you could get in fashion illustration. Now I mean people
probably don't even know what that means as far as um an advertising style.
So so you studied fashion illustration, which is basically drawing.
Um
Unmodel. Yeah. And
I was able to really
study anatomy in a big way. I had a I used to take a lot of courses on anatomy outside of FIT.
And from that I really
understanding the body, the movement of the body, the muscle over the bone over and the skin over. So it it all comes together.
Yeah.
Were you an ambitious student? Did you think I'm gonna I'm gonna
do this and then I'm gonna become a fashion designer. I'm gonna make a name for myself.
No. I'm first of all
Let's put this in perspective of the early sixties. Yeah. It wasn't until the seventies.
That's
Being a designer in a design house
was an American concept, right? So the jobs that you would get in the sixties would be
manufacturers who knocked off European fashion. Yeah. Even the department stores at the time would
copy the collections and put them under their store brand. So if you look at vintage clothes, you'll see in a lot of the labels the
The store that carried them.
Not necessarily the manufacturer or the designer because that was
the way it was done. So the store was really the brand.
And I wanna add to that.
Women
In the workplace.
In the sixties.
Think Mad Men again.
Yeah. Most of the women were secretaries, assistants, had those kinds of jobs. So
I just thought if I can get a fashion illustration job at a company or at a newspaper or a magazine, that would be fine. I would be happy with that. And so my first job
interview was in
The garment center at a manufacturer.
Unfortunately, it was uh
Uh
Difficult experience. It was an objectifying experience.
Yeah, so I
I was very happy with my portfolio. I felt very good about it. I
This is your portfolio of of your illustrations.
Yes, yes. So I
We so excited to
Be graduating and
you know, hopefully at this job.
And I walk in and he's got his feet up on his desk. He's eating a tuna sandwich.
And he tell me to
put my portfolio down and
I was wearing a little black dress below my knee.
low pumps, my hair was back in a bun. I was very low key.
And he said to me,
Come here and turn around for me and
I just there was this white noise and I thought
What?
W what does that mean? What
he and he's the power in the room and I hear my mother's voice saying, You better get this job, you better get a job and so I turned around and I
just was so embarrassed and humiliated, and I ran out of the office
I grabbed my portfolio and I remember my portfolio tearing up my stockings and my and I'm clip clopping on my
pumps and I'm feeling and crying and so
Devastated.
So when I got home my mother said, Well, did you get the job? And I said, No, I didn't get it and
I
got a New York Times, which is where they had a big section for
jobs that were available and I saw a job
at an airline and at the time
Pan Am
T W A, all of these airlines were the apple of the time, right? Those were the
Those are the jobs. That's where you want to find it. Yeah. And so I of course
didn't want to be a stewardess and I had zero office skills, but I went for the job because I thought I wanna travel. That's what I wanna do. I wanna see the world. I I don't want to do this. And so
I went for the job and
Uh shockingly I got it. And
The next thing I know
I'm working at a UNIVAC computer in the sixties. Besides education, airlines were the first ones to actually commercially use um computers. And just to just to and and and so what was your w you were hired by
By North West Northwest Orient Airlines in the office at Penn Plaza, yeah.
And as a as as what what was your official job? So I was uh a reservation specialist and uh basically a clerk and I
Worked in this
Big room.
With
Desks all in a row facing a big
Gladstone walled office and
Every single call was monitored and people were in there with headphones listening to how we handle our calls. People call up and and like if they want to book a ticket.
that you would be the person that they talk to.
Right. I my I was Agent ten oh six. That was I still remember it. And it was North East Orient Airlines, may I help you? I mean I'm still in my you know
So when you worked for Northwest Orient Airlines, which became eventually became Northwestern and now is no longer exists, part of merge with Delta. Um, did you get uh discounts on on f on travel?
Yes, and that was the reason I wanted to work at an airline, so
Uh the discount
to travel round trip to London was twenty nine dollars. Wow, from New York to London for twenty nine bucks. Yes, sir. And I every weekend I would leave Thursday night and come back Monday. Wow. And that was that was like the glamour the height of glamour travel. Yeah.
And everybody dressed to travel. Yeah.
So you were going back and forth to London in the in the mid sixties and uh
Just hanging out in London?
So my first trip
I did a stop first in Paris
Um I met my girlfriend in Paris that went was at FIT with me.
And we met in the lobby of her hotel.
And I was waiting for her and at the same time there was a a rock group from London um in the lobby. And so they thought I was French and they were talking about me and I was really trying not to
divulged that I knew what they were talking about and so my friend Betsy came and of course we see each other and we're screaming and they started laughing and they said, Oh, so you're an American
And it was the Spencer Davis group. I don't know if you know who they are.
You know the the song I'm a man I'm a man, yes I am. And they said when you guys come back to London
There's a club called the Speakeasy and we'll get you in. So we said sure. And when we got back to London
We
Of course
Went to the speakeasy on Margaret Street and
This was this club, this private club, where all of
The rock people, the everybody. Um I got to meet Jimi Hendrix and everybody else. Carnaby Street London. Jeff Beck, yeah. Jeff Beck was a really good friend. And then
Um
And at this club I met these two guys who were really nice and one of them said, You're gonna really get along with my girlfriend really well. Tomorrow come meet us at
our shop and so they had a shop
And the Stones were partners with them in the shop.
Wh where was the shop?
On King's Road. It was one of the a friend of mine at the airline suggested I stay at a boarding house off King's Road for six dollars a night. So I did. And so this was when Kings Road was all gray.
Except for a few stores that just burst color up the walls outside. And Dandy's, which was the name of the shop, was one of those stores.
They had men's clothes, women's clothes, they had a motorcycle in the store and a car engine and and I actually have um
a photo of four of us
Outside on King's Road, Parry Match came.
And did a colored double page spread of all of us dressed in the clothes from Dan Dow And it's hysterical. It looks like it's a costume party, but it was it wasn't a costume party. It was what we were really wearing. And the clothes were great.
And b by the way, this is a time.
If I'm not mistaken, when London was like
It was the center, like the cultural center of of the Western world. I mean of course, you know, they were
massive s like student demonstrations were begin beginning in Berkeley and in New York City and in Paris, but like culturally, right, London was
Carnaby Street and the stones and the Beetles and and people were wearing things that you were not seeing in New York.
Right.
Completely different.
I connected right away with it. I felt that that was where my soul was. I was totally comfortable with it.
So when I talk about London
being grey. You think of these tweed coats and the hats and the grey London
And this color bursting.
literally bursting and the music blaring out of the stores. It was art in expression.
In every way that you could think of film music.
fashion for sure.
So much.
had just flipped and
went against the grain of anything that had happened before.
So when I would come back from London with my skirt
Ah very short, mini, nobody had been wearing mini skirts before that.
So when I came back
And I would walk in the street with a mini skirt.
Cars would screech to a halt.
It was shocking and people would say the most ridiculous things like uh you know, the either that you're a prostitute or what do you what but
The shock of showing your knees. And that was completely like radical when you would come back to New York? Radical. Huh. Radical.
I guess
around this time y you this is sort of the
Mid
Mid sixties.
You met.
A guy named Eddie Kamali, who would go on to be your husband. How did you meet him?
His name was Mohammed Hossein Kamali.
And his spoken name was Mansor and some of his friends would call him Eddie. And I love to dance and there was
A club that opened
that was a very small club and it turned out that I knew the DJ and he was like, Oh Mom, so glad you came and he said
They're gonna have dance contests here and I think you should enter the dance contests. And I was like, Uh I don't know. And he said, Yeah, and I know
a guy that's a really good dancer that you should dance with and they they have prize money that you could win
So he introduced me to Eddie Kamale.
Hm.
And of course we won the dance contest.
So that in itself is enough reason to get married at nineteen.
Oh God, Norma. My mom also got married in nineteen. Um which was not unusual.
And and so nineteen years old. And I'm I because I'm thinking, Norma, what are you thinking? But that was right. So you were nineteen
You're married so when y so w you and Eddie were married when
All when you were s going back and forth to London.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And was he coming with you or were you going by yourself? No, he was um he was a student here
He was studying economics. He was one of a flood of Iranian students that came during the Shah's time. Yeah. So I would go to London and
It was pretty early on that I started to bring back clothes for friends of mine who were saying you've got to get me this, this and and so I would bring back these little
Dresses from you know
uh Biba and Bus Stop and all those shops in the in the garment bag. And uh I got those with the sort of
expandable sides and I literally it would be like I was carrying a body through
Might carry on. You were just packing your suitcase and bringing stuff back, so you didn't have to pay shipping costs.
I mean I just didn't know
better that you should I mean I was just Oh this sounds good and I just did it. And I did that
For very I mean
Four years. Meantime, you're still working for the airline, right?
Yes, um I'm working for the airlines and bringing clothes back, yeah.
This is around like nineteen sixty eight, I guess, and um
That year you would go on to open a
a store selling clothes, but how did you
Connect the dots. I mean, you're obviously bringing clothes back for friends, but at what point did you say, you know what, I should actually open a shop and sell this stuff?
Well, it was obvious to me that more and more people were asking me to bring clothes and and I thought
I don't know. Maybe this is maybe this is a good idea and having a shop would
sort of solidify
What I'm doing. It would
you know, make it have a purpose, not to just be sort of like a cattle car coming back and forth with clothes.
Um, and the the good news was because Eddie was a student
he would have time off that he could work in the store and sell, and he was great at selling, very charming and
While I was at
the airlines he was selling the clothes in the store.
it's almost impossible for the average person to just rent a place in New York, but how realistic I mean you were a a reservations clerk. How were you able to rent a a space in New York City? Was it cheap was it just cheap?
Well it was two hundred and eighty five dollars a month.
Nice. It was a basement. It was literally nine by sixteen. Where was it?
On East Fifty Third Street. This is fifty third between between what streets? Second and third. Se between second and third. Okay, so this is so this is midtown.
Yeah. But by the way, would did did did anybody in in in your office
Know that you had a shop selling fashion?
Um, that's a good question. I I kept it a secret.
But
The interesting thing was there were very strict rules on
dress code at all airlines. Very strict. Not uniforms, but you had to wear nude stockings.
Low heeled shoes.
And
I took advantage of the fact that I was.
really good at my job and
I had a feeling I would not get fired if I wore
Say a wig.
Or
About
Around my neck.
What wait, wait. You just said it was like a conservative environment. Yes. So how were you able to wear a boa or a wig?
it it happened over a period of time and I think they sort of
got used to it and I never got sent home. People would get sent home. But I
was really good at selling tours. Tours to the Orient. I mean, I really made some big bucks for them and I learned
I have to say, I learned how to sell.
Do that job. I learned how I learned service, sales
It was a great learning experience for me.
Alright, so you
This store, I'm assuming.
When you opened it up.
There was nothing like it because it was you're selling
Clothing from the UK. Yeah.
And so
People looked at shopping as sort of a sport or a sort of a a thing that you did. So couples would get dressed to go shopping.
And
Word would get out. It would almost be like going to art galleries, right? Where people wanna go see what's going on. And
Couples of all ages, all types of people would come and shop and
a lot of the fashion magazines, a lot of the stores, you know, big department stores would come to see
What we were doing.
But we sold things to
People of all ages. I mean I still
have people who are in their eighties now who are telling me they wore my clothes and I think it's so funny. Here's somebody who's eighty six who
Is telling me she wore my clothes and I think that's
Pretty fab. That's really good.
By the way, what was the store called?
Kamali.
Kamali, okay.
And Eddie um was he like did he I mean'cause he came to study economics, but did he prove to be actually a pretty good sales salesperson?
First of all he was
incredibly handsome and incredibly charming and
he left Iran when he was eleven and was in boarding schools in London, outside of London
Until he came here to go to college.
So he had that British accent that charming. Yeah. So he charmed
Everybody that came in the store.
Um, I I would say to him, Eddie, I think this is way too much money to charge for this. And he would say, I'm gonna sell it.
You'll see. I'll sell it. And I was like, No
And he would. So then I just thought, Well
I don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm just gonna be quiet.
So he was mainly handling the business side and you were kinda handling the creative side?
Was it first it? Yeah.
But you asked me before
Did anybody know?
Uh
Northwest if I had this company and nobody did until
Time magazine.
decided to do a story on snakeskin and how snakeskin was becoming
The accessory or whatever. And I
had snakeskin wallpaper in the store and I was m making at that point
I started to make some things and I was making snakeskin vests and shirts and stuff like that. And so they came
to fifty third Street and they photographed
Eddie and me in
Some snake skin in front of our store.
And
It got into Time Magazine.
And one day
This buzzer starts going off from behind the glass wall at the front and
Norma Kamali come to the front and so this is in the in the in the in like that big cavernous room at at North Castro, okay? So I got walking up and
They take me into a room and they open the Time magazine and they slap it down and said, What is this?
And I said, Oh wow.

I didn't even see it myself. Like
Wow. I I was so excited that and scared at the same time I didn't know how to react. Um
And they said they frowned on that, and I said I understand and they frowned on the fact that you had a business or what? Okay.
But I realized then also that
This was time that
that I it was it was getting very hard to do
Both and it just had to make a decision. So I f and and I didn't they didn't push me out, but uh in a few months after that I decided it was time to go. Focus on the but now but now you lose your your your cheap
flight to London to bring be able to bring the stuff back.
Right. Uh but it sounds like at this point you're already you're already designing and and selling some of your own pieces.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I started to make
Some things.
And my mother helped me because la as I told you before, she was great. She made costumes and beautiful clothes.
And
I really didn't know how to sew. I didn't know how to make a pattern. I didn't have any of those skills. But
My mother and I
Through my growing up would
work together where it say, Mom, can you make
these pants. I want them to do this, this, and this. And she would make them until she stopped making things that she didn't think were were good for for me to wear. So she didn't want to make them. But we did do a lot together before this. So
I asked her to help me.
put together some of my new ideas and that's how I started it. So we started to do some things together and I would put them in the store to see how they would do and they would do really well. And what were you designing?
I I don't know if there's
A term for what
The clothing was at that time to be honest.
They were
very
creative
mainly one of a kind pieces
handcrafted. I did uh a lot of
snake skin clothing. I did a lot of
suede and do skin
hand whip stitch skirts
With
different shapes flares.
I did the very first suede skin skirt that I made, I hand whip stitched, you know, you just take a whole puncher and you punch everywhere and then you stitch it together.
With strips of suede.
And I remember making that skirt. I put my heart and soul into it and I was so proud of it.
And of course Eddie sold it for some whatever ridiculous amount of money, I thought.
And so I had started to accumulate
the majority of the stock slowly became my

And in a very short time after
The the clothing was
Primarily mine.
I had a full page in Vogue and I had a good
size page in Bazaar. And that was beyond
belief because I thought somebody is gonna find me. I I don't know what I'm doing. Like I don't have a clue.
And I have a full page in b in vogue and bizarre. This is nuts.
when we come back in just a moment.
How Norma found the best person you could possibly imagine to narrate her first fashion show.
Even unknown
Bett Middler.
and how the ceiling eventually came down
Literally and figuratively.
On her clothing store.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz.
So
It's the late 1960s, and Norma Kamale's clothing store in Midtown Manhattan is starting to get noticed.
Her husband Eddie is running the place, and she's designing her own versions of some of the most iconic looks.
Of the time.
The first thing
that got a lot of attention.
And that
I mean I'm not gonna take credit for
being the first to do it, but I don't know anybody else that was doing it at the time.
With um hot pants. Hot pants.
This is in this is in uh I guess
Like nineteen sixty eight.
For for for those who don't know what hot pants are, what are hot pants?
Um
So hot pants, don't forget we're talking mini skirts, right? Yep. And how do you get a mini skirt shorter than mini?
It has to be short. We're all wearing boots.
that just come below our knees where
sort of having that proportion.
And so they were little tiny shorts. They weren't obscene, they were very cool. Yeah. Um long legs with boots and everybody looked like they had long legs. And I made them
I what I did was I
treated them as pieces of art. So I would do appliques and designs on these little tiny shorts. With like rhinestones and stuff?
Well, not the rhinestones I did as tops, but the the the hot pants were mostly velvet appliques and
lots of beautiful colors together. I would do palm trees and scenes, you know
All kinds of designs like that.
And these were short shorts, basically. Yes. Obviously you went to Fashion Institute Technology
you studied illustration, like super talented artistic person anyway, really into clothing.
But you hadn't been a clothing designer. This was not part of your skill set. Was that hard to figure out how to
Do it'cause you you you you didn't I think you didn't study
clothing design at at FIT.
No, but I'm obviously glad I didn't because I would have had a certain imprint that would have worked against
what I really felt uh akin to
It was very easy for me.
To
Envision
What I felt.
Should be next.
When you were were kind of
you know you're running the story, getting attention.
You're getting celebrities coming in. Like I mean like Bet Midler and the New York Dolls. The the they even had like an album cover with one of your uh like wearing your clothing.
And w were were were you s were you getting lots of celebrities coming into the shop?
Tonight.
started around the same time we started and we heard about this girl who is
funny and an amazing singer and she was singing in this
little dive place. And so this one night we're at this club and we're sitting right up front by the stage, tiny stage
And this girl comes out and she is
Such a good singer and she's his
And w she but she was not famous yet, right? No. She had brown hair, like to her shoulders, she and she was wearing vintage that was falling apart on her.
And in the middle of her act she stops and says
Wait a minute, who are you people and where did you get those clothes? I need to get those clothes.
And so after the show I met with her and she said
I have to get these. I should have no money. Can I work for you? I'll work in your store whatever, but I just don't have money. Wow. So I said
I know what you can do. I'm gonna do my first fashion show.
And
At the time
Fashion shows were narrated. People talked about the clothes in the fashion shows, so you had a narrator. So I said
I want you to narrate my fashion show.
Yeah, so I this is my first fashion show. So she's so she said, What should I say? I said, I don't care. Anything you wanna say when you see the clothes, you just say whatever you wanna say. So
We were in this mansion of
Some of the uh customers, boyfriends.
aunt was selling it or something and so in New York or on Long Island. And so
We invited all of these people, including Bill Cunningham, and so
I had clothes that looked like this. Let me explain what this was. I had
big polka dot ruffle jackets. I had
Gold Lemay.
Caprice. I had platforms
shoes. I had
Close that nobody t in fact
Stretch was not.
available in fabric so
The stretch I was using was actually
girdle and circus fabric. And I use circus fabric to make these pieces and so this is the tone. This is not what
anybody was doing. So all of these fashion people come.
Bat is sitting on a piano.
with a microphone
And she's saying whatever she wants and the people are looking at my clothes like
Like I lost my mind.
Totally crazy. The designer lost her mind and that woman on the piano lost her mind. Yeah. Like nobody knew either one of us. But you had a bunch of like fashionistas there and Bill Cunningham who's like a big fashion photographer. No, he wasn't a big fashion again. This is the this is
Yeah the sixties. I got ya. So he took a ton of photos and that's when we became friends and he said dear
I'm telling you something.
They're gonna come back and a and understand what you're doing. Wow. Yeah. This is like it's this is like a time capsule of like such a moment in New York City.
Bet Midler and Bill Cunningham Unknowns and Norma Kamali. Okay, so
I'm curious about the actual shop, right? Because
Mm-hmm. It's doing pretty well.
It it it must have been doing really well'cause by nineteen seventy four
This is like six years in. You had to m yeah you had to move to a bigger space. You went to Madison Avenue.
Right. So
When we moved in to Madison
I thought if we're on Madison Avenue
I have to do different clothes. I have to grow up. I have to learn.
How to make really beautiful
well made suits and dresses, so I started to do suiting
But
Classical suiting.
And I was h making suits for Raquel Welsh and Cher and everybody. So it really was
the right decision to make, the right place to go.
And that period of time
in New York fashion was very creative and it was one of my very creative times as well. But it sounds like you were focusing more now on professional
Clothing or like sort of high end.
Right.
hot pants and
And snake skin and velvet.
You know, bell bottoms. So things you would you would kinda wear at clubs or you would wear in the scene. And this sounds you were now.

shifting to making clothing that you might
We're in an office or or to a a sort of a fine dining restaurant.
It was a little it still was very unique in the design. It m still was not
Typical of what you could find anywhere else.
And prior to that
People only knew
at a
They didn't know me. I was very
much in the background, i an occasional
photo or something like that. But he really
Was the face of the бран.
And then I started to get
A little
recognition people wanted to know where the clothes were coming from and
So that was happening about that time.
Were you interested in the business side or did you kind of let Eddie handle that?
And kinda just
Focus on the creative side.
Yeah, I did. You know
This is a time when
Women's
would not consider
business as
something they typically would do.
It was okay.
To be creative in that space.
But the business part of it I never considered
Something that
I want to have the responsibility of and I assumed
like everyone else that men were better
at business than women. I you know
I m my world was that everybody believed it and assumed that that was the truth.
And so he was in charge of hiring employees and making sure people came in on and you were
And we're gonna get to
What happened later on, but
Um
Uh
At this time, you know, when you're in the store in Madison Avenue, what was your relationship with Eddie like? Was it was it a a pretty good marriage?
Well
You know, when you're nineteen
you're really still a child.
There's it's just you're a child in a grown up body.
And
By nineteen seventy four
You know, our identity started to form, and we were
Clearly
going in different directions, which is expected, right? I mean, how do you not?
I was so
Happy
Two found
Something I love to do, and I worked so hard because I loved every minute of it. Wasn't work.
He
Was
much more social and outgoing.


way we looked at life and the way we looked at everything.
He was more of like a p a partier.
Really big time
And and he was
very into drugs and very into
the night life and
Money's
being spent on drugs and being spent on
things that um are not business related and it became
more and more difficult for me to get fabric and to to just
sort of do the basic things that you need.
Wow. I mean, meantime, you're
like your profile I have to assume is rising. I mean you you had this kind of big
big breakthrough in nineteen seventy five with
That anybody
I mean people who don't know it, just type it and you'll you'll see and you'll say, Oh, of course I know that. That's a sleeping bag coat. It's it was like a big puffer jacket that looked like a sleeping bag and you wore it as a coat and um
and became like this iconic thing.
How did you come up with that idea?
Well
I loved camping and I love doing the whole t canoeing and
going down the rapids and so at
Uh uh one cold night.
When I
was trying to
figure out how I was gonna get out of my sleeping bag to find a place to go to the bathroom. I said, I'm not getting out of my sleeping bag, it's coming with me. So I wrapped it around myself and as I was
Wrapped in it, I thought.
You know, I think I'm gonna go back and make a coat out of this. And so the first sleeping bag coat was my actual sleeping bag.
And I used every
I was very
conscious of saving fabric and you know, very
very careful about those things and
that pattern is still
The pattern I use today for the classic
a sleepy back coat and I've made the coat every year
Since
Wow. And and that coat, right?
That was
I think it was like the first t'cause'cause that that material, right, sleeping bag material, which is like puffer jackets. Mm. Like I I I read that people really did not wear puffer jackets unless they went skiing. Now it's like, you know
A north face or a
Patagonia puffer jackets like, you know.
A fashion. But but in in that at that time, like people only wore them to go skiing or for w so it was sort of like um unusual, right, for that material to be used in a just a a coat.
Well, first of all, sleeping back
fabric was different from fabric you went skiing in. Mine was sort of a khaki
fabric on one side and the inside was flannel with geese and it was fabulous. And I then I bought a ton of sleeping bags and just started cutting them up like a crazy woman making sleeping bag coats.
Um
Was it a hit right away?
Sleeping bag coat?
It actually was and
You know, that's like
Seventy four, seventy five, seventy six.
Studio fifty four opens.
and the doormen are wearing my sleeping bag coat. And so people
Decided if they bought the sleeping bag coat and stood outside, maybe that would be a way they could get inside.
And I did not dissuade them.
Huh.
So we sold a lot of sleeping bag coats uh during that period of time.

You know, I'm surprised that you I'm curious about your public profile, right? Cause by the by the late seventies, I mean you were getting
Bianca Jagger coming into your store and like
Ian Schrager and you know, of Studio Fifty Four and like all these sort of New York iconic
fashion kind of in crowd people coming in.
But it sounds like you didn't

public profile is Eddie come up. You were Norma Kamali. You were designing this stuff. Did people know who you were?
No
My personality
has always been, even up till now.
Very, very private.
I always felt intuitively
That
My clothes should be the star. My clothes should make people feel good. People wearing my clothes should be the celebrities and the stars. And
My personality is really not an outgoing personality. However, I
A tribute.
That
decision quite frankly through the years.
Two
One of the reasons for my longevity.
When you're the flavor of the month
People get tired of you and they wanna see the next flavor of the mod. Totally agree.
Yeah. I think there's sort of a formula there that works because
I
Always did what I felt.
Was relevant.
And I never
really allowed myself to be out there to
I pulled back a lot. I didn't go to parties. I didn't I just really stayed sort of in the background.
I mean this was
Really at a time where you're
profile c I mean if we're if we were in the Instagram, Twitter age, I mean you'd be all over the place, right? Like you're there's a a an iconic
photograph that everyone listening will will know this photo anyone anyone over
Let's say forty. We'll know this photo.
It's a fair facet.
In a red swimsuit.
Um it's a just an iconic photo.
That's your swimsuit. You designed that swimsuit, which
I believe today is at this Smithsonian is in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. It is. And and you all of a sudden
I think kind of overnight become known as a swimsuit designer. So I asked Far. Farah was in a regular in the store and a
Just spectacular human being.
And so she was in at once and I saw her in the store and I said
I have to ask you why did you choose that swimsuit? Because I hated it. I hated that swimsuit so much. I did six of them.
And I would do six to test to see how people reacted to see
Whether or not
I would continue doing it and I would do these tests and I
I remember thinking, I don't know, I just am not sure about the suit and don't you know
She purchased it and I didn't realize I didn't know that she did. And then she said, Well, I had it in my bag.
And I was with my friend this photographer, and
We talked about doing photos for a poster, but
This was just another sort of we're gonna take pictures. And she said, so I had it with me, so I put it on and that's why. And I said, oh my god, I really, I couldn't believe out of all the suits she had for me that she chose that, but clearly.
The suit is
Just the subtext to her beautiful smile. Her
just d the aura she puts out and I think the reason men love it is because she's not threatening at all. She's just very sweet.
I I'm curious, I mean, this is a time, this is like the late seventies, where this is pre obviously long before internet commerce and
Um, and so you are in New York, which is a super hugely influential place.
But people
Couldn't get your stuff outside of New York, right?
Not yet, no.
No, at that time you had to go to
Madison Avenue. Right.
And you couldn't get it in LA at like Fred Siegel or you know some of those famous.
I mean, this is also the a time where you s American designers
Right.
Right, I mean, it's the beginning of a a complete revolution that you can have Don McKaren and you're gonna have
uh r uh Ralph Lauren and you're gonna have uh Calvin Klein and then Vera Wang and I on and I'm leaving out lots of'em, but right, this is kind of the the beginning of that movement. Because most designers were in Europe.
That's correct. And the seventies started to be a
Especially in New York, an incredibly
expressive time. It there was such an energy and expression. It sort of
Was
What?
London was in the sixties, this was now the next sort of energy
Yeah.
Intensely.
Exciting.
By the way
Did you
Did you have a sense that you guys were making money? I mean, did it seem like hey, I mean you you saw people coming into the shop and
Um
Or were you just not even paying attention to that?
I was paying attention because
It takes money to buy fabric, it takes money to
s sort of create the next thing you're gonna sell and
That's probably
Where
the differences between Eddie and myself.
came about because
He was spending a lot of money.
From
the
He was actually spending money from the business account of the company.
Yes.
And he was going out every night and then he started, you know, word would get back to me that he was
with girls and then he started
dating the sales girl in the store that I had fired because she wasn't doing her job, so he hired her back. So it started we started to have that kind of a
Not so great.
relationship and we'd grown apart and to be quite honest, I wasn't mortified that he was seeing other women. In fact I was like
Oh well, you know
That's the way it goes.
what was happening was
people were starting to realize that there was somebody else in the Kamali
thing and that
that there was somebody who was designing the clothes
And
At that time it was very hard for men to reconcile a woman with power.
it and and I wasn't I was very I mean I hardly spoke. I was very quiet. But my power wasn't coming
from me it was coming from people's
idea of me.
That was bothering him too, and I think part of the reason he was dating the sales girl was because
he had some sort of issue with what was happening with
Me.
Hm.
And and so h how did you guys resolve it?
Well, clearly
Um this was not gonna keep going in a good direction. It was n it and I think the the
turning point for me. You know, there's always that one thing that happens that's so horrific that you thank your lucky stars that it happened because you make the right move. And so I remember being in the sample room one day and this same sales girl that he hired back came in to tell me
that she decided she was gonna be the new designer and that she wanted me to make some of her designs and she described them to me.
So I was just looking at her thinking
This girl has definitely lost her mind, but I just let her keep talking and then she leaves
And I went to my cutting table. I didn't even say anything. I went to my cutting table and the ceiling
over my cutting table just fell.
And I said to myself
time to leave and so I just
left. I've literally
I just left.
You mean you just walked away from the business?
Yes.
I had ninety eight dollars to my name. We uh at that point Eddie and I had already
separated our living situation. I I got an apartment. I had
A mattress. I didn't have
Furniture.
I had my clothes and that was it.
It was definitely one of those moments in your life that you think
Oh my
God, what am I gonna do?
When we come back in just a moment.
How Norma figured out how to restart and rebuild her business.
and how she also learned to reinvent it.
with new designs, new technology.
And a roll out.
And Walmart.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to how I built this.
Hey, welcome back to how I built this.
So
It's the mid nineteen seventies, and Norma Cmalley has gotten a divorce from her husband Eddie.
and walked away from the clothing design store that they started together.
And this is not one of those stories where they agree to split up the business in equal parts.
I had the ninety eight dollars that I had
On me.
That was it.
And
I'd been
Asking around to see
If I wanted to leave, what would be the right thing to do? How do you handle it? And I had advice that you can't take anything if you leave, it's not
You know, that's not how you do it. If you leave the business.
Yeah, so
I if I wanted to leave
And he didn't want me to leave. I mean he he literally
contacted me to say
You owe me a swimwear collection before you go. And I was like
Okay.
And knowing full well that I wouldn't have money and that I would have to come back
So I think he really expected that I would.
Wow.
So you
I mean, this was a business that you started.
I mean that store Kamali presumably had to shut down.
Well, he kept it going for a while.
Obviously it didn't stay.
for that long, I think maybe a year or two.
And
I
Really I was
So
frightened and I'd never really
I never talked to anybody.
about anything private or personal
And so I felt really
kind of alone and a big lesson
I learned was
That
being private and quiet.
is not gonna get you anywhere and I had had
plan to meet
this um writer from the LA Times, which was one of a rare situation that I would ever meet an editor, and she really persisted and wanted to meet me
And my eyes were swollen shut from crying and I was so embarrassed, but I thought
I know where I'm supposed to meet her, but I don't have her number, so I went to meet her.
And she said, What happened to you and
And for the first time in my life I I shared
Anything private.
And that I left the business and
She said well
Then what do you need? And I was like, Oh my God, I need everything. And she says, Well I'm gonna get you some sewing machines. And so
I realize that if you talk to people
And tell them what you need.
something can happen, but if you keep it to yourself nothing is gonna happen. She connected you to people who had sewing machines? I mean this this reporter for the Yeah, she her husband knew somebody in the industry and then
And then I I decided to reach out to people.
and ask for help and ask if I could borrow money and
And that was my first
Like, okay, I'd I better figure out how to do this.
So
I mean
You h what you did have, though, was your reputation and obviously your your your track record of designing already kind of iconic
Designs, but no money.
Um this is a time where
I imagine
Especially for
A woman.
entrepreneur to go and like raise money. I mean, was that was that even a a possibility? Could you have gone out and like

I don't know, pitched people and and gotten investors on board. No.
women
Women didn't have businesses.
I didn't know a woman who
had her own business. Never mind in the fashion industry. I knew
women who were partners who had shops and things like that, but to have your own company and run it and design for it
That was sort of like
I couldn't think about it. I just had to do it.
And so
Friends.
Invested
their money in me and
you know, family, friends
Anybody anything that I could muster
I did and
I was so committed to paying everybody as soon as I could.
Because what they did for me is they gave me a freedom that
I so desperately wanted.
Alright, so it's nineteen seventy eight.
And you're completely starting again.
And you call your new business O M O on my own. I love that. Um and did you did did you kind of
rec recreate this idea? Was it a a brick and mortar store with
a space to design clothes in the back a as well.
Yeah, I had to come up with something
So I came up with O M O Norma Kamale. And I
I did find a space on fifty sixth street and there was uh
a space that I used as a sample room.
And so
That was really the turning point.
in my career.
Hm.
Alright, so you've got OMO.
Um you're starting from scratch and kind of and
Um
This is a time I think you started to r experiment with, like, material that
was used in like sweatpants, like sweat clothing.
Yes, so for my entire career
I would
Put in styles in the store.
And
Then the people from Bloomydales would come in and I would see full page ads
With my styles.
But not with my name on it, but with
Bloomingdales and You basically they were knocking they were knocking your style off. Right. And and I was crying trying to pay the rent. You would design stuff, sell it in your boutique, and then you would see the Bloomingdales. Right, or other places. And so
Finally I was doing a swimwear collection and as I was doing the collection I thought I think I'm gonna get sweatshirt fabric because I love to swim and when I would swim my brother had these sweatshirts from the Army Navy store and I would
put them on when I got out of the water.
Uh
I bought gray sweatshirt fabric and I designed some cover up pieces for swimwear and then I thought this is really beautiful. I did a dress and then I did a jumpsuit and then I did a coat and then I did a suit and I had 36 pieces all in gray sweatshirt.
And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking
You know what?
Somebody's gonna make a lot of money on this. And this time it better be me, because
I can't have any more sleepless nights. We gotta pay the rent. And so
I didn't know what to do so I contacted Women's Wear Daily who were very supportive of me, especially
going out on my own and
They came to see it and I said
How do I protect this? And they said
Do not show it to anybody. We are gonna introduce you to someone.
who will be a great partner for you to do a license with. So they introduced me
to Sidney Kimmel, who had Joan's apparel at the time, which was a hugely successful line for women going into the workplace.
And
We signed a deal in two weeks we were in business.
Then the brand, the name became known globally. It really
Just took off.
Uh in a huge way.
I I'm I'm looking at a photo of the of a Norma Kamali sweat jumpsuit from
Nineteen.
too and I see my mom in that p it's not my mom, but I see my mom in that picture. Right. Um that did really well I mean you I think
By nineteen eighty one.
You you were doing eleven million dollars in sales.
Yeah, easily, yes. And it became global. I had licenses in Japan.
In Europe.
in the US, I had
thirty licenses for
C everything, covering accessories, the whole deal. And that's when I really learned
how to negotiate, how to manage
a bigger kind of company.
But
There comes a point when you get too much attention
That you you get scared and you think
This is gonna be the end of me because it's gonna be too much.
And so
After six years of
Doing the collection.
with uh jones apparel I didn't renew the contract
Now let me tell you.
There was a lot of money on the table. Sure.
But I
I said I don't
I don't need a lot of money. I I just need
my independence and how can I maintain that? What can I do
To maintain that
But still
Keep my brand
In a good place. Walking away, as we all know.
is very important
thing to do.
at the very right time and it is the hardest thing to do.
But those were the times that really saved me um from
From really bad situations.
But you thought that I mean.
I guess I'm not I'm not entirely clear about why you w I mean if it was successful
And it was doing well and there was money to be made.
Um
What was it? Yeah.
As it got bigger and bigger, the quality control
Diminished.
And that's not good.
For me, right? That's not good for my reputation.
And then the distribution was in control. Yeah. Uh I remember Saks was complaining.
Because I did these big yellow slickers, right? They were really big with buffalo check.
flannel buffalo check inside and these are rain like raincoats. Rain slickers. Big fun ones.
And they
They did a big ad promotion, everything, and they still hadn't gotten their shipment.
And I was on my way home.
And I passed a store on Fourteenth Street, like a schlocky
junk store with a rolling rack outside of the yellow slickers. Of my yellow slickers. And I said, What is happening with the distribution? Why are there no controls? And
I remember I was told
You're only a pimple on an elephant's ass, and that's how big their company was. And I thought, Oh, okay, I think this is the time to
To hang it up.
And of course another thing that that's really hard to keep control over is is the designs themselves, uh, right? I mean, because
'Cause I mean let's just be clear, like it's it's very hard to patent
Designs.
No, you can't.
Right? You can't.
You can't so the w which is which is why like fast fashion began in the nineties and right sort of cheap knock offs that you would find at, you know
some of these stores because you can't, right? People no people can really not just kinda copy your style.
It's sort of it to be honest, it's sort of th a way of life in the fashion. There's a whole most of the industry copies and
You know, for me
I've always thought
I'm not gonna get upset about it. I have another idea so I don't have to worry that they took that idea. But when it comes to your survival in the business, that's when you start to get
Anxious
Now
You know, people still copy me, in fact.
There's this y young designer who
In
Twenty sixteen she opened uh did a website and she based her website on
A dress I designed in nineteen seventy three that I still sell called the All in One.
And the dress can be worn in a hundred different ways. It's easy care. And I have a whole video showing the way you wear it and
Her whole website is this dress, the video she did of all the ways you can wear it, and that she is the creator of the dress.
And she even came to my store to see what was going on, the whole thing. So I hear about this.
And she is a very small business and my CFO says we have to you know, we have to put a stop to this. She can't make these claims, so he

I said, this is what I wanna do.
I don't wanna have
negative conversations about somebody
Knocking me off. The only thing I care about is that she makes the dress.
in a good way. The way she's making it is so ugly and poorly made that what I wanna do is drop all of the charges against her and I'm gonna send her a pattern
of the dress with instructions on how to make it. And I said, and you know what? Now she's not taking advantage of me. I gave her a gift and that's it. And so that's my attitude about knocking off. I mean, it's just so pervasive though. Yeah.
Um
Normal, while you were um
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like
In the eighties.
You were really focusing on
Comfort clothing like I mean now we all talk about it'cause everybody's been doing Zoom calls and here I am. I'm wearing pja I'm wearing pajama pants right now and and and um house slippers. But um but you know, normally together I'd be wearing, you know.
uh colored shirt and you know, I'd be I'd be meeting normal Kamali. I would dress really well. Um but it seems like you were doing like comfort.
Clothing, you know, washable, machine washable.
How would you describe your like if I were to go to a shop and said, I wanna look I wanna dress in Norma Kamali
What would I look like?
Well, my philosophy has been the same all these years, so
I was believing um
clothes that felt good on
knits cloth that you could wash and not dry clean
fun clothes, clothes that you could be active in. I've always
I'm still that same person that I'm wearing sweats as we speak. Um
I love
To feel good in clothes. I don't want to feel uncomfortable. I don't even want to think about my clothes.
But the most important thing is that
It's not precious. You can wear it any time. You don't have to hang it on a special hanger or it's gonna get wrinkled. I that to me is so not on the list of
What what I'm gonna do.
Yeah, I'm curious because today
Like for example, streetwear, which is such a weird term to me because streetwear means like six hundred dollar T shirts.
Right. Or like or like three hundred dollar f rubber flip foot. That's streetwear. I'm like who on the street is wearing a five hundred dollar t shirt? Um was was your stuff
Super h expensive or was it was it affordable?
affordable so
To me
Value is also really important that
you're able to pay the rent and still have something you love. And
Uh you know, the idea of somebody buying like a
five thousand dollar handbag and not having any money to do anything else is like insanity. So for me
Beautiful clothes don't have to be expensive.
Mm.
And and I mean clearly that
mm, it sounds like that became kind of a or was a mantra of yours. I mean,'cause you
I mean I'm moving forward a little bit, but you you would go on to to partner with
Walmart in in the early two thousands. Yes.
Which by the way.
Um you can still get through like eBay and people sell them at a premium. Like like Norma Kamali T shirts and stuff. But um tell me about that about that partnership'cause I mean Norma Kamali, high fashion, you know, there's a certain kind of reputation and brand in Walmart obviously is not that. Yeah.
I'll tell you. So first of all
When Halston made a decision to do a big box, I think it was Penny's, it killed his career. And so
you know, word has always been you don't wanna get involved with those because for your reputation it's not good.
But
I love
To
meet people and
listen to ideas and what they
are offering. So if people approach me about something
I probably nine times out of ten will have the conversation. I always learn something from it.
And and it sounds like that's what
happened in this case, right? I mean I think
I think at some point what like someone you knew from the industry who'd who'd got a job at Walmart
Like called you up and
And made
Some sort of offer.
Yes.
And he said
I'm gonna ask you something and I don't want you to say no right away. He said
I'm working at Walmart and I want you to come
And meet me here.
And I said Oh I don't I really don't think so and he said
I know you
would like this meeting. I know you're gonna like it just for the experience you have to come. So I said, Okay, I I trust your judgement on that. So I get on a plane
And then you take that little plane to Walmart to Batonville.
And
I go to my first Walmart superstore and I am blown away. I have never
I mean I'm a New York City girl. I don't know. And I don't drive a car, so I'm not you know, I'm like a New York girl. So I'm looking at this thing and I'm like, holy mackerel
So then I
I meet some really smart people. We have these great conversations and
They wanna have a a fashion line for Walmart. And I said
I don't think so. I don't think that's a good idea just saying. And a little over a year later I got a call from them.
It appears that they did do a fashion line for Walmart and it didn't work.
And somebody that was at that meeting said
We have to talk to Norma.
But this time we'll come s to see you. So they said, What is in your mind? What are you thinking about? And I told them that I thought
That they should have
The core of a wardrobe, like a trench coat, a white shirt, a black trouser.
A jacket.
All the basics.
Yeah.
And so I remember when I
was doing a T shirt T shirt designs for them and I see six hundred and fifty units and I said
I don't know, that doesn't seem like it's gonna be enough. And they said, Well that's six hundred and fifty thousand units and I was like, Oh, okay
Alright, I get it.
And
So
The quality
Of the clothes was
exactly the quality I wanted, the fabric was the fabric I wanted, and why is why so? Because when you order six hundred and fifty thousand units,
You can get the quality you want and the fabric you want.
That's a tremendous amount of power. My experience at Walmart
Was ex
Extraordinary.
I I read that when the collection was debut at Walmart and you you were at at a Walmart, like people were running up to you with with like
Cash register receipts for you to art out of them. Right.
Right.
That part of
Of what you have done.
tried to do and have done throughout your career has been to constantly like you're constantly coming up with different ideas. Like
you got into e commerce super early, like in in in like nineteen ninety six. Yeah. And you got on you were on eBay like really early and you I mean in the nineties you introduced like a
I think a a a line of like home goods
Products like
Were all those things
Was it was it just you following your curiosity or w were were these like str like really kind of strategic
business decisions that you were making.
I actually had a website
In like
between ninety five and ninety eight I started to really kinda
want to be because I was so comfortable with computers and
because of the airlines and I understood
what you could do.
with this kind of technology, I just wanted to jump.
Right in, right away. And of course it was way early. But
I
I do well when I'm
doing a lot of different things because I find
Each of them
Inspires the other and keeps
things very exciting. Remember, I haven't changed my job.
In fifty three years. I've had the same job.
When I'm
interested and I see something
Is
An opportunity that can
use creativity and technology
I am super excited about it. I you know I love VR. I love
Some of the
Amazing
directions we can go in. This is a very
exciting time, inventive time.
This is gonna be bigger
than the sixties were in the revolution part of it.
When
I mean there's there's so much

Life and career that we can
That we just can't
talk about because it's been you've had this incredible
career and I know um you've got a book.
Um kind of talking a little bit about your life and and also about
your experience and I I I
I gather the message of your book is like
Hate.
Actually your life gets better as you get older.
Yeah. The book is called I am Invincible.
And what I do is I share
My life experiences through the decades, and so
The goal of the book is to help women get through each of these decades.
with some tools and information
And aging with power is sort of the
The headline of the book and that
You can get better with age, but
I love the fact that
I'm so much smarter now than I ever was, and that
I do things
Now
To serve my purpose in this lifetime, which is a very freeing experience.
We all have a different
schedule. We all have a different timeline and
One should never judge theirs by others and
I think the universe just
is checking things out for us and helping make the right decisions like
meeting your soul mate at sixty five.
I am very fortunate that I did end up finding someone who is my soulmate.
I'm happy that it was at this point in my life because honestly
I wasn't ready earlier.
It's funny,'cause I I talked to my mom about this, who's
He's almost your age, and uh she she always says to me, I this is the best time of my life.
Like I love
Being in my seventies, this is it's
D do you do you feel that way?
Yeah, she she's absolutely right, you know.
anti wrinkle, anti aging
All of that.
Just
Drives me and your mother crazy. Okay? I will speak for her. So
I feel that I'm in the place.
Where I can
communicate and help educate.
what aging is about and
Whether it's a twenty year old that feels like she's getting old or a a thirty year old, forty year old, fifty year old
The idea of getting old should be
Part of the passage in a woman's life, not something to fear.
But something
Two
cherish because of the knowledge and the experience you gain
In each of these decades. Yeah.
When you think about the h the history of American fashion
You know, I think a lot of people would say you're you're
A big part of it you're right right right there in it.
It's like the history of of restaurants. Um you know, Alice Waters who who's on the show, like she's just an incredibly important yeah part of why why so many people eat

Do you do you feel like that? Does that um do you feel like a
Pioneer in that in in in American fashion.
You know, it's really interesting.
I look at Norma Kamali almost
I just
other person, right? I think that
Norma Kamali.
contributes to the fashion industry.
I like to think
People are
comfortable in a casual lifestyle in their clothing.
Because of maybe something I did with sweats.
I'm like that little speck that gets things activated and then it becomes something bigger and much bigger than I am.
I certainly

my name on it to feel better. I just sort of feel, hmm that's that's pretty cool. I like that. I like that that's happening. I like that people are wearing sweats now at home. And everybody's saying they're gonna
Never wear sweats again. Sorry, I don't believe you.
I I know you're gonna wear sweats again.
I mean, when you think about it, you had no intention of becoming a fashion designer. You went to the fashion institute of of technology because your mom was like, You better get a job and then um but and that really was your your objective, like the idea that you would become this
known fashion designer was not part of your plan, but you did.
And you know
a successful, well known designer.
How much of your story do you and your success do you think
happen because
'Cause you worked really hard and were really strategic and how much do you think has to do with
Just getting lucky.
First of all, yes, you have to work.
Really?
Hard.
Um
The way you work really hard.
Is
that you're doing what you love s you love it so much that you don't feel like you're working hard.
And that you have good relationships because
The last thing you want to do
is burn bridges and
Релейшеншіпс
You know, the one thing I can tell you.
Is
Do not
Burn a bridge because that bridge is gonna come around again. You're gonna see all those people again. You cannot believe
How
Everything comes round.
But
I also think
I hope I don't sound too
Crazy or
Woo woo, but I do think
The universe has a big plan for us and
You can call it luck, but I think it's even more than that. I think we do things
Because
That's what we should be doing.
That's iconic fashion designer Norma Kamali.
And by the way, remember when she was talking about that one off design she did back in the late 1960s?
that suede skirt that she whip stitched using a hole puncher?
Well, a few years back, decades after she created that skirt,
Normal was out walking around town.
And I see a girl
Walking towards me in the most amazing skirt.
And I kept looking at it thinking, Oh my god, it moves so beautifully. I really love that skirt. And as she was coming towards me
That was my skirt, and she must have been nineteen. So clearly that skirt is
Was purchased by someone
Either handed down to her mother to her or
sold then given to a vintage store that then sold it to someone that skirt probably has had a
Several lives
And here I was seeing it.
And I wanted to stop her, but I thought, No, that's not what you're supposed to do. You're just supposed to look at it. And I had chills. I was so moved by it.
I'll never forget that moment.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show.
And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter. You can find it at gyros.com.
This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Ramteen Areblui. It was edited by Neva Grant.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung,
Carla Estevez, Chris Massini, Sam Paulson, Devin Schwartz, Catherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Roz and you've been listening to how I built this.