Norma Kamali: Norma Kamali

When Norma Kamali studied fashion illustration in the 1960s, she never expected to become a designer. So when a job as an airline clerk came along, she was glad to accept it—along with the perk of dirt-cheap flights from New York to London. On those weekend trips abroad, she discovered fashion that was exuberant and eye-catching, so she started loading her suitcase with clothing to sell in the U. S. By the 1970s, she was designing her own pieces out of a shop in New York; soon she was selling them to celebrities like Cher and Bette Midler. Today, after more than 50 years in the fashion industry, Norma Kamali is known for iconic designs like the sleeping bag coat, and the bold red bathing suit popularized by Farah Fawcett. Order the How I Built This book at: https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThis See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 5:24Speaker 01

  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-sized page in Bazaar. And that was beyond belief, because I thought, somebody is going to find me out. I don't know what I'm doing. And I have a full page in Vogue and Bazaar? This is nuts. Like, I don't have a clue.

• 6:12Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:24Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Norma Kamali built a 50-year career around hot pants, sleeping bag coats, and a Farah Fawcett swimsuit, and helped usher in the era of American fashion design.

• 6:49Guy Raz?

  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 $1 billion. The suitcase maker Away was launched in 2015, and by 2019, investors valued it at $1.4 billion. 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,

• 7:32Guy Raz?

  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 Kamali 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

• 8:12Guy Raz?

  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 1960s, design, for the most part, happened in Europe. To wear something fancy usually meant wearing Hermès, or Chanel, or Christian Dior, not Donna Karan, or Ralph Lauren, or Calvin Klein. And Norma Kamali...

• 8:53Guy Raz?

  Molly was in the vanguard of young designers who changed all of that. She grew up in the 1950s 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 13, both her father and her stepfather died. So Norma was mainly raised by her mom, who, according to Norma, was an incredibly creative person.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  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 for as long as I can remember. And it was great satisfaction for me.

• 10:03Guy Raz?

  And did you have easels and canvases all over your house? And were you constantly painting?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Actually, no, because the house was about two feet by three feet. So 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.

• 10:45Guy Raz?

  But when it came time to go to college, you didn't go to art school. Instead, you wound up getting a scholarship to FIT, which is the Fashion Institute of Technology, right?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I decided on FIT because my mother was very clear that she didn't think painting was actually going to help me pay the rent because she wanted me to know that she was not going to help me pay the rent. So I went to FIT to see where that would take me. But you have to know that I hated fashion because it was Mad Men time, right? That girdles, garda belts, cone bras, the whole thing. And everything was matchy.

• 11:36Guy Raz?

  This was the early, this was like the early 60s.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I did not like that at all. I found it very restricting. And I was obsessed with vintage films from the 30s and 40s. So I was already going into these sort of secondhand stores. They weren't called vintage stores at the time.

• 11:59Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  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, 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 an advertising style.

• 12:33Guy Raz?

  So you studied fashion illustration, which is basically drawing outfits on models.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was able to really study anatomy in a big way. I had, 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 and the skin over. So it all comes together.

• 13:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And 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?

• 13:13Speaker 01

  No. First of all, let's put this in perspective of the early 60s.

• 13:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  It wasn't until the 70s that being a designer in a design house was an American concept, right? So, the jobs that you would get in the 60s would be manufacturers who knocked off European fashion.

• 13:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  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 that 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 want to add to that, women in the workplace in the 60s, think Mad Men again.

• 14:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  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 a difficult experience. It was an objectifying experience.

• 14:50Guy Raz?

  When you went in as an interview?

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was very happy with my portfolio. I felt very good about it.

• 15:00Guy Raz?

  This is your portfolio of your illustrations?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. So I was so excited to be graduating and, you know, hopefully get this job. And I walk in and he's got his feet up on his desk. He's eating a tuna sandwich. And he tells 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.

• 15:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  And he said to me, come here and turn around for me. And I just, there was this white noise and I thought, what? 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.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  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, TWA, all of these airlines were the apple of the time, right? Those were the, those were the jobs.

• 16:51Guy Raz?

  That's where you wanted to work, yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  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 want to travel. That's what I want to do. I want to see the world. I, I don't want to do this. And so I went for the job and 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 computers.

• 17:29Guy Raz?

  And just, just, and, and so what was your, you were hired by, by Northwest?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Northwest Orient Airlines in the office at Penn Plaza, yeah.

• 17:40Guy Raz?

  And as a, as, as what, what was your official job?

• 17:42Speaker 01

  So I was a reservations specialist and.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Basically, a clerk and I worked in this big room with desks all in a row facing a big glassed in walled office and every single call was monitored and people were in there with headphones listening to how we handle our calls.

• 18:11Guy Raz?

  So people call up and like if they want to book a ticket, you would be the person that they talk to?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Right. I was Agent 1006.

• 18:19Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  I still remember it and it was Northwest Orient Airlines, may I help you? I mean, I'm still in my, you know.

• 18:28Guy Raz?

  So when you worked for Northwest Orient Airlines, which became, eventually became Northwestern and now is no longer exists, part of it was a merger with Delta, did you get discounts on travel?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yes, and that was the reason I wanted to work at an airline. So the discount to travel round trip to London was $29.

• 18:53Guy Raz?

  Wow, from New York to London for 29 bucks?

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yes, sir. And I, every weekend, I would leave Thursday night and come back Monday.

• 19:01Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  And, yeah.

• 19:03Guy Raz?

  That was, that was like the glamour, the height of glamour travel.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and everybody dressed to travel.

• 19:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So you were going back and forth to London in the mid 60s and just hanging out in London?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  So my first trip, I did a stop first in Paris. I met my girlfriend in Paris that 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 rock group from London in the lobby. And so they thought I was French and they were talking about me and I was really trying not to divulge 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

• 19:58Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:09Guy Raz?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got you. Okay.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:41Guy Raz?

  God, you were really like in the got, got into the scene. Like this is like swinging sixties Carnaby Street, London.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Jeff Beck, yeah. Jeff Beck was a really good friend. And then, um, and at this club, I met these two guys who really nice. And one of them said, you're going to 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.

• 21:12Guy Raz?

  Where, where was the shop?

• 21:13Speaker 01

  On King's Road. It was.

• 21:15Guy Raz?

  On King's Road in Chelsea. Okay.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  A friend of mine at the airline suggested I stay at a boarding house off King's Road for $6 a night. So I did. And so this was when King's Road was all gray, except for a few stores that just burst color up the walls outside. And Dandies, which was the name of the shop, was one of those stores.

• 21:40Guy Raz?

  Wow. What was this? And what did the store sell?

• 21:42Speaker 01

  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 color double page spread of all of us dressed in the clothes from Dandies.

• 22:06Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  And it's hysterical. It looks like it's a costume party, but it wasn't, it wasn't a costume party. It was what we were really wearing and the clothes were great.

• 22:16Guy Raz?

  And 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

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:25Guy Raz?

  of the Western world. I mean, of course, you know, there were massive, like, student demonstrations were beginning in Berkeley and in New York City and in Paris, but like culturally, right, London was Carnaby Street and the Stones and the Beatles.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 22:39Guy Raz?

  And people were wearing things that you were not seeing in New York.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  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 gray, you think of these tweed coats and the hats and the gray 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

• 23:28Speaker 01

  when I would come back from London with my skirt, very short, mini, nobody had been wearing mini skirts before that.

• 23:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  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, you know, either that you're a prostitute or what do you, what, but the shock of showing your knees.

• 24:01Guy Raz?

  And that was completely like radical when you would come back to New York?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Radical. Radical.

• 24:09Guy Raz?

  I guess around this time, you, this is sort of the mid, mid 60s, you met a guy named Eddie Kamali, who would go on to be your husband. How did you meet him?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  His name was Mohammed Hussein Kamali. And his spoken name was Mansour. And some of his friends would call him Eddie. And I loved 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, I'm so glad you came. And he said, they're going to have dance contests here. And I think you should enter the dance contest. And I was like, 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.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  So he introduced me to Eddie Kamali. And of course, we won the dance contest. So that in itself is enough reason to get married at 19.

• 25:20Guy Raz?

  Oh, God, Norma, my mom also got married at 19, which was not unusual. And so 19 years old, and I'm, because I'm thinking, Norma, what are you thinking? But that was, right? So you were 19, you're married. So when you, so you and Eddie were married when, all, when you were going back and forth to London?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:39Guy Raz?

  And was he coming with you or were you going by yourself?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  No, he was, 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.

• 25:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  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 so I would bring back these little dresses from, you know, Biba and Bus Stop and all of those shops in the, in the garment bag. And I got those with the sort of expandable sides. And I literally, it would be like I was carrying a body through my carry on.

• 26:26Guy Raz?

  You were just packing your suitcase and bringing stuff back, so you didn't have to pay shipping costs.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  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 a very, I mean, four years.

• 26:43Guy Raz?

  Meantime, you're still working for the airline, right?

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm, I'm working for the airlines and bringing clothes back, yeah.

• 26:50Guy Raz?

  This is around like 1968, I guess. And 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.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Well, it was obvious to me that more and more people were asking me to bring clothes back. 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. 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.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  And while I was at the airlines, he was selling the clothes in the store.

• 27:58Guy Raz?

  I mean, this is 1968, so it's not New York today. Because New York real estate today is, it's almost impossible for the average person to just rent a place in New York. But how realistic? I mean, you were a reservations clerk. How were you able to rent a, a space in New York City? Was it cheap or was it just cheap?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Well, it was $285 a month.

• 28:18Guy Raz?

  Nice.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  It was a basement. It was literally nine by 16.

• 28:23Guy Raz?

  Where, where was it?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  On East 53rd Street.

• 28:26Guy Raz?

  This is 53rd between, between what streets?

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Second and Third.

• 28:30Guy Raz?

  Between Second and Third. Okay, so this is, so this is midtown.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:33Guy Raz?

  But by the way, would, did, did, did anybody in, in your office know that you had a shop selling fashion?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  That's a good question. 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 a boa around my neck.

• 29:16Guy Raz?

  Wait, wait. You just said it was like a conservative environment.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:20Guy Raz?

  So how were you able to wear a boa or a wig?

• 29:23Speaker 01

  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 through that job. I learned how, I learned service, sales. It was a great learning experience for me.

• 29:53Guy Raz?

  All right. 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.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  From London, yeah. And so people looked at shopping as sort of a sport or a sort of 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 want to 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.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I still have people who are in their 80s now who are telling me they wore my clothes. And I think it's so funny. Here's somebody who's 86 who is telling me she wore my clothes. And I think, that's pretty fab. That's really good.

• 31:02Guy Raz?

  By the way, what was the store called?

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Kamali.

• 31:06Guy Raz?

  Kamali, okay. And Eddie, was he like, did he, because he came to study economics, but did he prove to be actually a pretty good salesperson?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  First of all, he was incredibly handsome and incredibly charming. And he left Iran when he was 11 and was in boarding schools in London, outside of London, until he came here to go to college.

• 31:33Guy Raz?

  So he had that British accent that charming, so yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he charmed everybody that came in the store. And then he would say, 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.

• 32:02Guy Raz?

  So he was mainly handling the business side? And you were kind of handling the creative side? Was that his first say?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Yes. But you asked me before, did anybody know at Northwest if I had this company? And nobody did until Time Magazine decided to do a story on snake skin and how snake skin was becoming the accessory or whatever. And I had snake skin wallpaper in the store. And I was making, at that point, I started to make some things. And I was making snake skin vests and shirts and stuff like that. And so they came to 53rd Street and they photographed Eddie and me in some snake skin

• 32:52Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:09Guy Raz?

  Wow, this is in the, in the, in the, in like that big cavernous room at Northwest Orient.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  So I go 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 was so excited and scared at the same time. I didn't know how to react. And they said they frowned on that. And I said, I understand.

• 33:44Guy Raz?

  They frowned on the fact that you had a business or what?

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. 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 find, and I didn't, they didn't push me out, but in a few months after that, I decided it was time to go.

• 34:07Guy Raz?

  Focus on the, but now, but now you lose your, your, your cheap flight to London to bringing, be able to bring the stuff back.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:17Guy Raz?

  But it sounds like at this point, you're already, you're already designing and selling some of your own pieces.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I started to make some things and my mother helped me because 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 or it'd 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.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 35:23Guy Raz?

  And what were you designing?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if there is 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 a lot of snake skin clothing. I did a lot of suede and doh skin hand whip stitch skirts with different shapes and flares. I did the very first suede skin skirt that I made, I hand whip stitched. You know, you just take a hole puncher and you punch everywhere and then you stitch

• 36:09Speaker 01

  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 stocks slowly became my designs. And in a very short time, after the clothing was primarily mine, I had a full page in Vogue and I had a good size page in Bazaar.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  And that was beyond belief because I thought, somebody is going to find me out. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I don't have a clue. And I have a full page in Vogue and Bazaar. This is nuts.

• 37:09Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Norma found the best person you could possibly imagine to narrate her first fashion show, a then unknown Vet Midler, 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 from NPR.

• 37:43Guy Raz?

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• 38:21Guy Raz?

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• 38:42Speaker 02

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• 39:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the late 1960s, and Norma Kamali'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.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  The first thing that got a lot of attention, and that, I mean, I'm not going to take credit for being the first to do it, but I don't know anybody else that was doing it at the time, was Hot Pants.

• 39:37Guy Raz?

  Hot Pants. This is in, I guess, like, 1968. For those who don't know what Hot Pants are, what are Hot Pants?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  So Hot Pants, don't forget, we're talking miniskirts, right?

• 39:52Guy Raz?

  Yep.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And how do you get a miniskirt shorter than mini? It has to be shorts. We're all wearing boots that just come below our knees. We're sort of having that proportion. And so they were little tiny shorts. They weren't obscene, they were very cool.

• 40:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  On 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.

• 40:30Guy Raz?

  With like rhinestones and stuff?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 40:49Guy Raz?

  And these were short shorts, basically?

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:52Guy Raz?

  Obviously, you went to Fashion Institute of 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 skillset. Was that hard to figure out how to do it? Because you, you, you didn't, I think you didn't study clothing design at FIT.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  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 akin to. It was very easy for me to envision what I felt should be next.

• 41:34Guy Raz?

  When you were, were kind of, you know, you're running the store, getting attention, you're getting celebrities coming in, like, I mean,

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 41:42Guy Raz?

  Like Bette Midler and the New York Dolls. They, they even had like an album cover with one of your, like, wearing your clothing. And were, were you, were you getting lots of celebrities coming into the shop?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Tons. So Bette Midler started around the same time we started. And we heard about this girl who was 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 hysterically funny.

• 42:23Guy Raz?

  And she was not famous yet, right?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:59Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  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 show. So you had a narrator. So I said, I want you to narrate my fashion show.

• 43:20Guy Raz?

  Bette Midler?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is my first fashion show. So she said, what should I say? I said, I don't care. Anything you want to say, when you see the clothes, you just say whatever you want to say. So we were in this mansion of somebody, a customer's boyfriend's aunt was selling it or something. And so

• 43:40Guy Raz?

  Is this a mansion in New York or on Long Island?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  In New York in the 60s. It was incredible. 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 capris, I had platforms shoes, I had clothes that nobody, in fact, stretch was not available in fabric. So the stretch I was using was actually girdle

• 44:22Speaker 01

  and circus fabric. And I used 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, Bette 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.

• 44:48Guy Raz?

  This is just totally nuts, totally crazy.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  The designer lost her mind, and that woman on the piano lost her mind. Like, nobody knew either one of us.

• 44:58Guy Raz?

  But you had a bunch of like fashionistas there, and Bill Cunningham, who was like a big fashion photographer.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  No, no, he wasn't a big fashion photographer. This is, this is, you know, the 60s.

• 45:09Guy Raz?

  I got you.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  So he took a ton of photos. And that's when we became friends. And he said, dearie, I'm telling you something, they're gonna come back and understand what you're doing.

• 45:24Guy Raz?

  Wow. This is like, this is like a time capsule of like such a moment in New York City. Bette Midler and Bill Cunningham, unknowns, and Norma Kamali. Okay, so I'm curious about the actual shop, right? Because it's doing pretty well. It must have been doing really well, because by 1974, this is like six years in, you had to, you had to move to a bigger space. You went to Madison Avenue.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 46:34Guy Raz?

  But it sounds like you were focusing more now on professional clothing or like sort of high end suits and dresses. I mean, you'd gone from, you'd been doing hot pants and, right, some of these-

• 46:45Speaker 01

  And snake skin and velvet, you know, bell bottoms.

• 46:50Guy Raz?

  So things you would, you would kind of wear at clubs or you would wear in the scene. And this sounds like you were now kind of shifting to making clothing that you might wear in an office or to a sort of a fine dining restaurant.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  It was a little, it still was very unique in the design. It still was not typical of what you could find anywhere else. And prior to that, people only knew Eddie. They didn't know me. I was very much in the background, an occasional photo or something like that. But he really was the face of the brand. 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.

• 47:42Guy Raz?

  Were you interested in the business side? Or did you kind of let Eddie handle that and kind of just focus on the creative side?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did. You know, this is a time when women 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, my world was that. Everybody believed it and assumed that that was the truth.

• 48:30Guy Raz?

  And so he was in charge of hiring employees and making sure people came in on.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:35Guy Raz?

  And you were, I know we're going to get to what happened later on, but at this time, you know, when you're in the store on Madison Avenue, what was your relationship with Eddie like? Was it, was it a pretty good marriage?

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Well, you know, when you're 19, you're really still a child. There's, it's just you're a child in a grown up body. And by 1974, you know, our identities 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 to have found something I loved to do. And I worked so

• 49:24Speaker 01

  hard because I loved every minute of it. It wasn't work. He was much more social and outgoing. So there was sort of a difference in the way we looked at life and the way we looked at everything.

• 49:42Guy Raz?

  He was more of like a partier?

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Really big time partier. And, and he was very into drugs and very into the nightlife and money is being spent on drugs and being spent on things that are not business related. And it became more and more difficult for me to get fabric and to just sort of do the basic things that you need.

• 50:17Guy Raz?

  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 1975 with, with the sleeping bag coat.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:30Guy Raz?

  That anybody, I mean, people who don't know it, just type it in, 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 as a coat and, and became like this iconic thing. How did you come up with that idea?

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Well, I loved camping and I loved doing the whole canoeing and going down the rapids. And so at 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 bit

• 51:30Speaker 01

  of it. 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 sleeping bag coat. And I've made the coat every year since.

• 51:50Guy Raz?

  Wow. And, and that coat, right, that was, I think it was like the first, because that, that material, right, sleeping bag material was like puffer jackets.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:59Guy Raz?

  Like, I, I read that people really did not wear puffer jackets.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:03Guy Raz?

  Unless they went skiing. Now it's like, you know, a North Face or a Patagonia puffer jackets, like, you know, a fashion statement. But, but in, in that, at that time, like, people only wore them to go skiing or for, so it was sort of like unusual, right, for that material to be used in just a coat?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, sleeping bag 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...

• 52:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  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.

• 52:45Guy Raz?

  Was it a hit right away, the sleeping bag coat?

• 52:48Speaker 01

  It actually was. And, you know, that's like 74, 75, 76, Studio 54 opens and the doorman 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. So we sold a lot of sleeping bag coats during that period of time.

• 53:23Guy Raz?

  You know, I'm surprised that you, I'm curious about your public profile, right? Because by the, by the late 70s, I mean, you were getting Bianca Jagger coming into your store and like Ian Schreger and, you know, of Studio 54 and like all these sort of New York iconic fashion kind of in crowd people coming in. But it sounds like you didn't have as much of a public profile as Eddie Kamali. You were Norma Kamali. You were designing this stuff. Did people know who you were?

• 53:54Speaker 01

  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 attribute that decision, quite frankly, through the years to one of the reasons for my longevity.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  When you're the flavor of the month, people get tired of you and they want to see the next flavor of the month.

• 54:44Guy Raz?

  Totally agree. Yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  I think there's sort of a formula there that works because...

• 54:52Speaker 01

  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.

• 55:11Guy Raz?

  I mean, this was really at a time where your profile, 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, an iconic photograph that everyone listening will, will know this photo. Anyone, anyone over, let's say 40, will know this photo. It's a Farah Fawcett in a red swimsuit. 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.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Right, it is.

• 55:41Guy Raz?

  And, and you, all of a sudden, I think, kind of overnight, become known as a swimsuit designer.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  So I asked Farrah, Farrah was 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 this suit. And don't you know, she purchased it and I didn't realize, I didn't know that she did.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  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 going to 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.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  The suit is just the subtext to her beautiful smile, her just 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.

• 57:23Guy Raz?

  I'm curious. I mean, this is a time, this is like the late 70s, where this is pre, obviously, long before internet commerce. 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?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Not yet, no.

• 57:41Guy Raz?

  No, at that time, you had to go to-

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Madison Avenue.

• 57:45Guy Raz?

  Kamali Shop on Madison Avenue to buy your stuff.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 57:48Guy Raz?

  And you couldn't get it in LA at like Fred Segal or, you know, some of those things. Okay. And, I mean, this is also a time where you, American designers are starting to really-

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:00Guy Raz?

  Right. I mean, it's the beginning of a complete revolution. You're going to have Donna Karen, and you're going to have Ralph Lauren, and you're going to have Calvin Klein, and then Vera Wang, and on and on, leaving out lots of them. But, right, this is kind of the beginning of that-

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:17Guy Raz?

  Move, because most designers were in Europe.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  That's correct. And the 70s started to be, especially in New York, an incredibly expressive time. There was such an energy and expression. It sort of was what London was in the 60s. This was now the next sort of energy ball. That was intensely exciting.

• 58:48Guy Raz?

  By the way, did you, did you have a sense that you guys were making money? I mean, did it seem like, I mean, you saw people coming into the shop and-

• 58:58Guy Raz?

  Were you just not even paying attention to that?

• 59:00Speaker 01

  I was paying attention because it takes money to buy fabric, it takes money to to 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 company and

• 59:25Guy Raz?

  He was actually spending money from the business account of the company and his own, like, social life?

• 59:30Speaker 01

  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. But what was happening was people were starting to realize

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  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. 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. And 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.

• 1:00:56Guy Raz?

  And so how did you guys resolve it?

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Well, clearly, this was not going to keep going in a good direction. It was not. And I think 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 the same sales girl that he hired back came in to tell me that she decided she was going to 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

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  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 literally, I just left.

• 1:02:06Guy Raz?

  You mean, you just walked away from the business?

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Yes. I had $98 to my name. We, at that point, Eddie and I had already separated our living situation. I, I had got an apartment. I had a mattress. I didn't have furniture. I had my clothes and that was it. And it was, it was definitely one of those moments in your life that you think, oh my God, what am I going to do?

• 1:02:43Guy Raz?

  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 rollout at Walmart. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 1:03:22Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. So it's the mid 1970s and Norma Kamali 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 agreed to split up the business in equal parts.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  I had the $98 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.

• 1:04:06Guy Raz?

  If you leave the business.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so 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.

• 1:04:32Guy Raz?

  Wow. So you, I mean, this was a business that you started. I mean, that store Kamali presumably had to shut down.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  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 told, 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 going to get you anywhere. And I had had

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Plan to meet this 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 for the first time in my life, I I shared anything private.

• 1:05:57Guy Raz?

  You told her that your your marriage was dissolved and that your business is.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  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 said, well, I'm going to get you some sewing machines. And so I realized that if you talk to people and tell them what you need, something can happen. But if you keep it to yourself, nothing is going to happen.

• 1:06:26Guy Raz?

  She connected you to people who had sewing machines? I mean, this reporter for the.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  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, OK, I I better figure out how to do this.

• 1:06:50Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, you 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. 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 possibility? Could you have gone out and like? I don't know, pitched people and gotten investors on board?

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  No. But don't forget, women, women didn't have businesses. That 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.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:08:14Guy Raz?

  All right, so it's 1978 and you're completely starting again. And you call your new business OMO, On My Own. I love that. And did you, did you kind of recreate this idea? Was it a brick and mortar store with a space to design clothes in the back as well?

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had to come up with something. So I came up with OMO Norma Kamali. And I, I did find a space on 56th Street. And there was a space that I used as a sample room. And so that was really the turning point in my career.

• 1:08:59Guy Raz?

  All right, so you've got OMO, you're starting from scratch and kind of. And this is a time, I think you started to experiment with like, material that was used in like sweatpants, like sweat clothing.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Yes, so for my entire career, I would put in styles in the store. And then the people from Bloomingdale's would come in and I would see full-page ads with my styles, but not with my name on it, but with Bloomingdale's.

• 1:09:35Guy Raz?

  Basically, they were knocking, they were knocking your style off.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Right, and, and I was crying trying to pay the rent. Let's just, let's, plain and simple.

• 1:09:44Guy Raz?

  You would, you would design stuff, sell it in your boutique, and then you would see that Bloomingdale's would knock it off.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Right, or, 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. And 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 thirty-six pieces, all in gray sweatshirt.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  So they introduced me to Sidney Kimmel, who had Jones 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 in a huge way.

• 1:11:46Guy Raz?

  I'm looking at a photo of a Norma Kamali sweat jumpsuit from 1982. And I see my mom in that. It's not my mom, but I see my mom in that picture.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:56Guy Raz?

  That did really well. I mean, I think by 1981, you were doing $11 million in sales.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Easily, yes. And it became global. I had licenses in Japan, in Europe, in the US. I had 30 licenses for 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 get scared. And you think, this is going to be the end of me because it's going to be too much.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  And so after six years of doing the collection with Jones Apparel, I didn't renew the contract. Now, let me tell you, there was a lot of money on the table there.

• 1:12:58Guy Raz?

  I'm sure.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  But I said, I don't need a lot of money. 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 a very important thing to do at the very right time. And it is the hardest thing to do.

• 1:13:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  But those were the times that really saved me from really bad situations.

• 1:13:39Guy Raz?

  But you thought that, I mean, I guess I'm not entirely clear about why you would. I mean, if it was successful and it was doing well and there was money to be made. What was it?

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Well, 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 wasn't controlled.

• 1:14:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  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...

• 1:14:16Guy Raz?

  These are rain, like raincoats.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  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 14th Street, like a schlocky junk store.

• 1:14:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  With a rolling rack outside of the yellow slickers, of my yellow slickers.

• 1:14:41Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:15:02Guy Raz?

  And of course, another thing that's really hard to keep control of is, is the designs themselves, right? I mean, because, because, I mean, let's just be clear, like, it's, it's very hard to patent designs.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  No, you can't.

• 1:15:15Guy Raz?

  Right? You can't. You can't. So which is, which is, which is why like fast fashion began in the 90s and...

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:15:21Guy Raz?

  Right? Sort of cheap knockoffs that you would find at, you know, some of these stores because you can't, right? People, people can really not just kind of copy your style.

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  It's sort of, to be honest, it's sort of a way of life in the fashion industry. There's a whole, most of the industry copies. And, you know, for me, I've always thought, I'm not going to 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 about it.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Now, you know, people still copy me. In fact, there's this young designer who in 2016, she opened, did a website. And she based her website on a dress I designed in 1973 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 could 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.

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  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 talks to the lawyer, the whole thing. And this is recent. So last week, I said, this is what I want to do. I don't want to 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 want to do is drop all of the charges against her. And I'm going to send her a pattern of the dress with instructions on how to make it.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  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 at this point about knocking off. I mean, it's just so pervasive, though.

• 1:17:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Um, Norma, while you were, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like In the 80s, you were really focusing on comfort clothing. Like, I mean, now we all talk about it because everybody's been doing Zoom calls. And here I am, I'm wearing pajama pants right now and house slippers. But normally, together, I'd be wearing a collared shirt and I'd be meeting Norma Kamali. I would dress really well. But it seems like you were doing like comfort clothing, washable, machine washable. How would you describe your... Like, if I were to go to a shop and said, "I want to dress in Norma Kamali stuff in like 1985," what would I look like?

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  Well, my philosophy has been the same all these years. So I was believing in clothes that felt good on, knits, clothes 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. I'm wearing sweats as we speak. 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 anytime.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  You don't have to hang it on a special hanger or it's going to get wrinkled. That, to me, is so not on the list of what I'm going to do.

• 1:19:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I'm curious because today, like, for example, "streetwear," which is such a weird term to me because "streetwear" means like $600 t-shirts, right? Or like $300 rubber flip flops. That's "streetwear." I'm like, who on the street is wearing a $500 t-shirt? Was your stuff super hot, expensive, or was it affordable?

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  No, affordable. So, to me, value is also really important, that you're able to pay the rent and still have something you love. And, you know, the idea of somebody buying like a $5,000 handbag and not having any money to do anything else is like insanity. So for me, beautiful clothes don't have to be expensive.

• 1:20:11Guy Raz?

  And I mean, clearly, that it sounds like that became kind of a or was a mantra of yours. I mean, because 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 2000s.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:20:25Guy Raz?

  To to debut a collection of clothing at Walmart, which, by the way, you can still get through like eBay and people sell them at a premium, like like Norma Kamali t-shirts and stuff. But tell me about that about that partnership, because, I mean, Norma Kamali, high fashion, you know, there's a certain kind of reputation and brand and Walmart obviously is not that.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  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 want to 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 10, will have the conversation. I always learn something from it.

• 1:21:23Guy Raz?

  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 gotten a job at Walmart, like, called you up and and made some sort of offer?

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  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, OK, I I trust your judgment on that. So I get on a plane. And then you take that little plane to Walmart, Tabettenville. And I go to my first Walmart superstore. And I am blown away.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  I have never, I mean, I'm a New York City girl.

• 1:22:24Guy Raz?

  Yeah, there's no Walmart superstore in New York, yeah.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  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 fashion line for Walmart. And I said, I don't think so. I don't think that's a good idea. I'm 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.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  And somebody that was at that meeting said, we have to talk to Norma. But this time Will comes 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. And so I remember when I was doing a T-shirt, T-shirt designs for them. And I see 650 units. And I said, I don't know, that doesn't seem like it's gonna be enough. And they said, well, that's 650,000 units.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, okay. All right, 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 650,000 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 extraordinary.

• 1:24:24Guy Raz?

  I read that when the collection was debuted at Walmart and you were at a Walmart, like, people were running up to you with, like, cash register receipts for you to autograph them.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:24:34Guy Raz?

  It seems to me that, that part of, of what you have 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, like, 1996.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:51Guy Raz?

  And you got on, you were on eBay, like, really early. And you, I mean, in the 90s, you introduced, like, a, I think, a, a line of, like, home goods products. Like, were all those things, was it, was it just you following your curiosity? Or were, were these, like, like, really kind of strategic business decisions that you were making?

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  I actually had a website in, like, between 95 and 98, where I started to really kind of 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.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Remember, I haven't changed my job in 53 years. I've had the same job.

• 1:26:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  And so, 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 going to be bigger than the 60s were in the revolution part of it.

• 1:26:37Guy Raz?

  When, I mean, there's, there's so much, there's so much in your 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 you've got a book.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:53Guy Raz?

  Kind of talking a little about your life and also about your experience. And I gather the message of your book is like, hey, actually, your life gets better as you get older.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  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 headline of the book in that you can get better with age. And that at 75, I love the fact that I'm so much smarter now than I ever was and that

• 1:27:47Speaker 01

  I do things now to serve my purpose in this lifetime, which is a very freeing experience.

• 1:27:56Guy Raz?

  And you recently got engaged at 75.

• 1:28:00Speaker 01

  I did. I did.

• 1:28:02Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Congratulations.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  Well, thank you very much. So we all have a different schedule. We all have a different timeline. And one should never judge theirs by others. 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. And I think the universe just is checking things out for us and helping make the right decisions, like meeting your soulmate at 65.

• 1:28:41Guy Raz?

  It's funny, because I talked to my mom about this, who's almost your age. And she always says to me, this is the best time of my life. Like, I love being in my 70s. This is, it's, do you feel that way?

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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 20-year-old that feels like she's getting old, or a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, 50-year-old, the idea of getting old should be part of the passage in a woman's life.

• 1:29:34Speaker 01

  Not something to fear, but something to cherish because of the knowledge and the experience you gain in each of these decades.

• 1:29:46Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Norma, COVID has been really, really difficult on your industry. I mean, in 2020 alone, J. Crew, Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney, Brooks Brothers filed for bankruptcy. I mean, Gap couldn't pay rent on like more than 2,000 stores. But I wonder, this year is gonna, I'm assuming it's gonna inevitably change the industry and how it operates. And I don't know, is there a silver lining to it?

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  Oh, totally. I mean, the industry has been fragile for a long time. And many changes needed to be made. And this only forced them to happen sooner rather than later.

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  And talk about stressful. If you did not have a significant part of your business on e-commerce, you were going to get beaten up pretty badly. Fortunately, since Walmart, I did so well on e-commerce there. I thought, OK, my next collection, I'm focusing on e-commerce from now on. And so I have been, and my company, the big, big, big percentage is e-commerce. And we've really redefined ourselves as a company.

• 1:31:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When you think about the history of American fashion, you know, I think a lot of people would say, you're a big part of it. You're right, right, right there in it. It's like the history of restaurants. And, you know, Alice Waters, who was on the show, like, she's just incredibly important.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  So great, yeah.

• 1:31:28Guy Raz?

  Part of why so many people eat local and organic food. Do you, do you feel like that? Does that, do you feel like a pioneer in that, in, in, in American fashion?

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  You know, it's really interesting. I look at Norma Kamali almost as this 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 don't want to have, like, my name on it to feel better.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  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 going to never wear sweats again. Sorry, I don't believe you. I know you're going to wear sweats again.

• 1:32:40Guy Raz?

  I mean, when you think about it, you had no intention of becoming a fashion designer. You went to the Fashion Institute of Technology because your mom was like, you better get a job.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:32:49Guy Raz?

  And that really was 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 and your success do you think happened because you worked really hard and were really strategic? And how much do you think has to do with just getting lucky?

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  First of all, yes, you have to work really hard. And the way you work really hard is that you're doing what you love. 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 relationships, you know, at 75 and 53 years in the business, the one thing I can tell you is do not burn a bridge, because that bridge is going to come around again.

• 1:33:51Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  You're going to see all those people again. You cannot believe how everything comes around. 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.

• 1:34:26Guy Raz?

  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, Norma was out walking around town.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  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 19. So clearly, that skirt 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 several lives. And here I was seeing it. And I wanted to stop her, but I thought,

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:35:44Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you are not a subscriber, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write us, our email address is [email protected]. If you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at How I Built This. Or my personal one is at Guy Raz. And my Instagram is at Guy dot Raz. Our show was produced this week by J.C. Howard, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Farah Safari, Derek Gales, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Janet Wu-Jung Lee. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

• 1:36:32Guy Raz?

  This is NPR.