Norma Kamali | |
|---|---|
| Born | Norma Arraez (1945-06-27)June 27, 1945 (age 80) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Fashion Institute of Technology |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
| Years active | 1968–present |
| Website | normakamali |
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Norma Kamali (born June 27, 1945)[1] is an American fashion designer and entrepreneur best known for the "Sleeping Bag" Coat, sweats as everyday sportswear, and swimwear. She lives in New York City.[2]
Norma Arraez was born on June 27, 1945, to Estrella C. Galib Arraez Granofsky and Salvador Mariategui William Arraez, a middle class family residing inManhattan'sUpper East Side inNew York City.[1][3] She is ofLebanese andBasque descent.[4] Aspiring to become a painter.[3] Kamali attended theFashion Institute of Technology and earned a degree in illustration.[3][5] She worked forNorthwest Orient Airlines from 1966 to 1967.[6] In an interview, she says that her mother Estrella planted a seed when telling her to become independent and pushed her to make her own cloth early on.[7]
In 1967, Kamali opened a New York boutique with her then-husband Mohammed Houssein "Eddie" Kamali, concentrating on London-style street looks, including the1940s-revival looks that were trendy in 1971 and that Kamali would play with throughout her career.[8] In 1974, the couple opened a shop called Kamali on Madison Avenue. After their divorce in 1978, Kamali opened her own independent boutique called OMO Norma Kamali, OMO standing for "on my own."[9]
During the early seventies, she started producing one-piece maillot bathing suits stripped of structuring to achieve a sleek, racy shape on which she altered leg cuts and back cuts to create a great variety of looks, those in glamour fabrics like gold lamé garnering particular attention from fashion-watchers. By the mid-seventies, she was well known for her swimsuits, and the very high leg cuts on some of her swimwear from the second half of the seventies set a trend that lasted through the following decade.[10] She used fabrics with Lycra both for her swimsuits and for clothing to dance in at Studio 54. Kamali designed the red one-piece bathing suit worn byFarrah Fawcett inthe iconic 1976 poster[11] and the bathing suit worn byWhitney Houston on the back cover of her 1985 debut album. Farrah Fawcett's suit was donated to theSmithsonian National Museum of American History in 2011.[12] Her designs have been worn by rock stars and pop culture figures for almost 60 years, including Bette Midler, Grace Jones, Diana Ross, Raquel Welch, Christie Brinkley, Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Sabrina Carpenter.
She became known for her line of clothing made of real silk parachutes, which included the innovation of being adjustable in length and fit by drawstring, a characteristic feature of the mid-seventiesBig Look period,[13] and she still makes parachute clothing today.
Norma Kamali designed her famous Sleeping Bag Coat in 1973 after a camping trip inspired her to create a wearable garment from a sleeping bag.
Kamali was one of over a dozen designers selected to produce costumes for the 1978 filmThe Wiz.[14]
Norma Kamali designed and patented the High Heeled Sneaker in the 1980s.
She is one of several designers credited with popularizing theshoulder pad in women's wear in the 1980s[15] and played a prominent role in adapting exaggerated shoulder pads to casual clothes at thebeginning of the eighties shoulder-pad era in 1978.[16]
She reached a peak of fame during the early 1980s[17] with her 1980 "Sweats" collection, a variety of casual garments done in sweatshirt fabric, most famously flounced, hip-yokedminiskirts called rah-rah skirts in the UK,[18][19] a style she had first presented in other fabrics in 1979.[20] These garments were the first mini-length skirts in ten years to gain widespread public acceptance, repopularizing miniskirts for the eighties.[21] The "Sweats" collection of 1980-81 also finally won the public over to the large shoulder pads that the fashion industry had been trying to get women to wear since 1978, partly by making the pads removable via velcro, the first designer to make prominent use of velcro for this purpose.[22] Her "Sweats" collection was also the pioneer of athleisure, which we still see trending today.
Kamali did not usually participate in the biannual series of fashion shows in which most designers presented their wares, preferring instead to debut new styles in her store windows. An exception to this was when Japanese designerHanae Mori invited her to stage a Kamali presentation in Tokyo in 1983.[23]
Garments from Kamali's 1983 and '84 lines, including black-and-white blanket plaids, raincoat-yellow jackets, and trumpet skirts,[24] were featured in thevideo forChaka Khan's hugely popular 1984 cover of "I Feel for You."
To present her fall 1984 collection, she prepared a video called "Fall Fantasy" that was played on screens in her store.[25] The video included a song composed for her by Walter Grant called "Shoulder Pads,"[26][27] a tongue-in-cheek paean to one of her favorite fashion items of the time.[28][29] Her fall 1985 collection video featured music byCarly Simon.[30][31] She continued to introduce new lines via store videos for years afterward.[32]
For sustainability purposes, all of her designs are washable.
Her work is included in the collections of theMetropolitan Museum of Art.[33]
Kamali was the first designer to create an online store oneBay.[2] In addition to designing clothing, she has also produced a fitness, health and beauty line.[34] In 2008, Kamali produced a collection forWalmart.[35]
Kamali has a podcast, NORMAKAMALIFE, where she interviews pop culture figures, fashion and beauty notables, and wellness and longevity experts, as well as shares her life experience.
After completing agenerative AI course atMIT in 2023,[36] Kamali trained anAI to produce clothing designs in her style, taking reference from her archive of designs to improve her company's longevity.[37][38] She is a believer of using AI in art and design to open new doors of creativity.
In 2021, Kamali published a memoir entitledI Am Invincible,[39] a handbook for women on fitness, health, beauty, and life. She also co-wrote a book on acupuncture and Chinese Medicine with Dr. Jingduan Yang titled "Facing East."
Kamali continues to be the sole owner of Norma Kamali Inc, which has global distribution.
In 1981, Kamali won aCoty Award, called the "Winnie" but formally titled the American Fashion Critics' Award.[40] She received theCFDA Board of Directors Special Tribute Award in 2005,[2] and was awarded the CFDAGeoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016,[3] which was presented to her byMichael Kors.[41] In 2019, Kamali received theWomen's Entrepreneurship Day Pioneer Award[42] at theUnited Nations.
In 2010, Kamali received anhonorary doctorate from her alma mater, theFashion Institute of Technology.[43]
Kamali has a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame.[35]
In 1968, she married Mohammad "Eddie" Kamali. They divorced in 1977. She got engaged to her longtime partner, Marty Edelman, in 2020.[44]
...feather chubby, shiny satin shorts,...Kamali, 229 East 53rd Street.
At nineteen, Norma married Eddie (Mohammed Houssein) Kamali,a student from Iran; and, a year later, they opened a basement boutique on East Fifty-Third Street. They stocked it with kicky 'sixties Carnaby Street London things...[T]he shop moved, in 1974, to a...space on Madison Avenue. It was called Kamali. After the Kamalis divorced, OMO Norma Kamali was born – in 1978.
First, there are Kamali bathing suits...In 1972, Kamali first made maillots out of gold lamé...
Some of Norma Kamali's concoctions for the Emerald City sequence of 'The Wiz'.
Norma Kamali...has become famous for her parachute dresses, sexy, shirred bathing suits, pegged, draped skirts...and...padded shoulders.
One year ago [1982], all you saw being worn by fashionable women was Norma Kamali.
Norma Kamali launched her 'sweats' collection: rah-rah skirts, leggings and jogging suits cut in grey and brightly coloured cotton sweatshirting. The tops often had huge, American-footballer shoulder pads. These low-priced co-ordinates were copied worldwide.
...Norma recently designed a thirty-five-piece collection of separates in sweatshirt fabric....produced by the sportswear division of Jones Apparel.
Kenzo, Chloé and others now showed pretty, floral printed-cotton versions of the rah-rah introduced by Kamali and [Perry] Ellis in 1979.
Short 'rah-rah' skirts...sold out...across the country....'Girls would buy 20 pieces at a time.'...Her rah-rah skirts were 'the first minis, since the early 'seventies, to sell in volume'.
...[In] the late `70s...really big shoulders reappeared,...broader than ever. Reactions to the doorway-wide affairs generally ranged from 'not for me' to 'never!'...In the spring of `81, Kamali slipped oversized shoulder pads into vastly oversized sweatshirts in a collection of sportswear that took off overnight and found women, girls and even kids across the country happily looking like female footballers.... Since then, shoulder pads have become a way of life to the fashion-conscious,...
Norma Kamali chose Tokyo as the site of her first and only fashion show upon the invitation of Japanese designer Hanae Mori. 'I probably never will do another show,' said Norma. 'I prefer the "shows" of my store windows.'
From Norma Kamali, her bright, taxicab-yellow slicker with a black/white flannel check lining... – an OMO-emblem T-shirt..., matching flannel check 'trumpet' skirt...
Instead of runway presentations, she believes in the power of video. For fall,...she planned...Fall Fantasy.
She had...a special song, 'Shoulder Pads,' written with original lyrics by Walter Grant; arrangement by Remal Music Design.....'The videos are mounted in my widows, and we aim to plug the sound of the song "Shoulder Pads" right onto the streets.'...
'She's got big shoulder pads for men to cry on' from 'The Great Shoulder Pad Song,' commissioned for her fall-collection video by Norma Kamali....Kamali's sounding it out from her OMO shop speakers.
'Broad shoulders and a lean body reflect an attitude of today for me'.
'Shoulder pads...,' [Norma Kamali] said, '[a]re like wearing a padded bra. They give you a certain attitude and strength. They compensate for...physical shortcomings.'...
...Norma Kamali and...Carly Simon teamed up for Kamali's new video...dubbed 'Interview'...
Norma Kamali's most recent video fashoin extravaganza...comes with...music by Carly Simon.
[Says Kamali,] 'We now do videos each season'.
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