Norma Kamali: Norma Kamali (2021)

32:26Right. But it sounds like at this point you're already you're already designing and selling some of your own pieces. 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 and 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 good for me to wear.

33:10So 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 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 snakeskin clothing I did a lot of suede and doe 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 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 designs 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 out I don't know what I'm doing.

35:07Like, I don't have a clue. And I have a full page in Vogue and Bazaar. This is nuts.

35:18When 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 Bette 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.

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39:26Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. 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. 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. Hot pants. This is in, I guess, like 1968. For those who don't know what hot pants are, what are hot pants? so hot pants don't forget we're talking mini skirts right yeah and how do you get a mini skirt 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 They were very cool on long legs with boots.

40:40And everybody looked like they had long legs. And I made them, 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 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 the Fashion Institute of Technology. You studied illustration, like super talented artistic person anyway, really into clothing.

41:28But 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? Because you didn't, I think you didn't study clothing design 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 akin to. It was very easy for me to envision what I felt should be next. When you were kind of running the store, getting attention, you were getting celebrities coming in. Like Bette Midler and the New York Dolls. They even had an album cover with one of your clothing. And were you getting lots of celebrities coming into the shop?

42:19Tons. 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. But she was not famous yet, right? No. Oh, 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?

43:09I 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 going to do my first fashion show. And at the time, fashion shows were narrated. People talked about the clothes and the fashion show, so you had a narrator. So I said, I want you to narrate my fashion show. Bette Midler. 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.

43:57So we were in this mansion of somebody, a customer's boyfriend's aunt was selling it or something. And so there's a mansion in New York or on Long Island 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 lame 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 and circus fabric. And I used circus fabric to make these pieces.

44:53And 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 I lost my mind. This is just totally nuts. Totally crazy. The designer lost her mind and that woman on the piano lost her mind. Nobody knew either one of us. But you had a bunch of fashionistas there. Bill Cunningham was a big fashion photographer. No, he wasn't a big fashion photographer then. This is the 60s. I got you. So he took a ton of photos, and that's when we became friends.

45:41And he said, dearie, I'm telling you something. They're going to come back and understand what you're doing. Wow. This is like a time capsule of 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 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.

46:32So 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. 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 – And snakeskin and velvet, you know, bell bottoms. So things you would kind of wear at clubs or you would wear in the scene.

47:20And this sounds like you were now kind of shifting to making clothing that you might wear in an office or to sort of a fine dining restaurant. 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. 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?

48:16Yeah, 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. And, you know, 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, 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?

49:11Was it a pretty good marriage? Well, you know, when you're 19, you're really still a child. It's just you're a child in a grown-up body. And by 1974, 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 to have found something I loved to do. And I worked so 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. He was more of like a partier? Really big time partier.

50:14And 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. Wow. I mean, meantime, your profile, I have to assume, is rising. I mean, you had this kind of big breakthrough in 1975 with the sleeping bag coat. That anybody, I mean, people who don't know it, just type it in. You'll see and you'll say, oh, of course, I know that. That's a sleeping bag coat. It was like a big puffer jacket that looked like a sleeping bag and you wore it as a coat and became like this iconic thing.

51:11How did you come up with that idea? 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 going to 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 going to 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 of it. I was very conscious of saving fabric and, you know, very, very careful about those things.

52:03And that pattern is still the pattern I use today for the classic sleeping bag coat. And I've made the coat every year since. Wow. And that coat, right, that was, I think it was like the first, because that material, right, sleeping bag material, which was like puffer jackets. Like 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 jacket. It's like, you know, a fashion statement. But at that time, like people only wore them to go skiing. So it was sort of like unusual, right, for that material to be used in just a coat.

52:46Well, 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 it was fabulous. And then I bought a ton of sleeping bags and just started cutting them up like a crazy woman making sleeping bag coats. Was it a hit right away, the sleeping bag coat? It actually was. And, you know, that's like 74, 75, 76, Studio 54 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.

53:38And I did not dissuade them. so we sold a lot of sleeping bag coats during that period of time. You know, I'm surprised that you, I'm curious about your public profile, right? Because by the late 70s, I mean, you were getting Bianca Jagger coming into your store and like Ian Schrager 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? No. My personality has always been, even up till now, very, very private.

54:28I 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. when you're the flavor of the month people get tired of you and they want to see the next flavor of the month 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.

55:31I didn't go to parties. I just really stayed sort of in the background. I mean, this was really at a time where your profile – I mean, if we were in the Instagram, Twitter age, I mean, you'd be all over the place, right? Like, there's an iconic photograph that everyone listening will know this photo. Anyone over, let's say, 40 will know this photo. It's a Farrah Fawcett in a red swimsuit. It's just an iconic photo. That's your swimsuit. You designed that swimsuit, which I believe today is in the Smithsonian's permanent collection. It is. And you all of a sudden, I think kind of overnight, become known as a swimsuit designer.

56:13So 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 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. 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.

57:16And 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 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'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?

58:05Not yet, no. No, at that time you had to go to... Madison Avenue. The Kamali shop on Madison Avenue to buy your stuff. Right, right. And you couldn't get it in L.A. like Fred Siegel or, you know, some of those things. Okay. And, I mean, this is also a time where American designers are starting to really – Right. Right. I mean, it's the beginning of a complete revolution. You're going to have Donna Karan 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 this is kind of the beginning of that move because most designers were in Europe.

58:46That'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. By the way, did you have a sense that you guys were making money? I mean, did it seem like you saw people coming into the shop 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 sort of create the next thing you're going to 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.

59:50He was actually spending money from the business account of the company on his own social life? Yes. And he was going out every night. Right. 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. 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 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.

1:01:11And 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. And so how did you guys resolve it? Well, clearly, this was not going to keep going in a good direction. 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 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 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.

1:02:23And I said to myself, time to leave. And so I just left. I literally, I just left. You mean you just walked away from the business? Yes. I had$98 to my name. We, 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. 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?

1:03:08When 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.

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1:05:31Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. 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. 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 if you leave the business yeah so I if I wanted to leave and he didn't want me to leave.

1:06:21I mean, 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 never really told, I never talked to anybody about anything. private or personal. And so I felt really kind of alone.

1:07:19And a big lesson I learned was that being private and quiet is not going to get you anywhere. And I had had planned 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 shared anything private. You told her that your marriage was resolved and that your business is.

1:08:09And 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 she connected you to people who had sewing machines I mean this reporter for the yeah she Her husband knew somebody in the industry. And then I decided to reach out to people and ask for help and ask if I could borrow money. And that was my first, like, okay, I better figure out how to do this.

1:08:58So, I mean, what you did have, though, was your reputation and obviously 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 raise money. I mean, was that even a possibility? Could you have gone out and, I don't know, pitched people and gotten investors on board? No. But don't forget, 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.

1:09:54I 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. 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 kind of recreate this idea? Was it a brick and mortar store with a space to design clothes in the back as well? Yeah, I had to come up with something. So I came up with OMO Norma Kamali.

1:10:50And 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. 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 like sweatpants, like sweat clothing. Yes. So for my entire career, I would put in styles in the store and then the people from Bloomydale's would come in and I would see full page ads with my styles, but not with my name on it, but with Bloomydale's. Basically, they were knocking your style off.

1:11:46Right. And I was crying, trying to pay the rent. Let's just plain and simple. You would design stuff, sell it in your boutique, and then you would see the Bloomingdale's. 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 going to get sweatshirt fabric because I love to swim. And 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.

1:12:31I 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 going to make a lot of money on this. And this time it better be me because I can't have any more sleepless nights. We got to 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 going to introduce you to someone who will be a great partner for you to do a license with.

1:13:24So they introduced me to Sydney 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. 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. I see my mom in that picture. Right. That did really well. I mean, I think by 1981, you were doing$11 million in sales. Yeah, easily, yes. And it became global. I had licenses in Japan, in Europe, in the U.S.

1:14:23I 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. 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. I'm sure. 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?

1:15:27Walking 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. But those were the times that really saved me from really bad situations. 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? 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 was in control. I remember Saks was complaining because I did these big yellow slickers, right?

1:16:20They were really big with buffalo check, flannel buffalo check inside. These are like raincoats. Rain slickers, big fun ones. And 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 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 wow to hang it up and of course another thing that's really hard to keep control over 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 no you can't right you can't you can't so which is which is which is why like fast fashion began in the 90s and right right sort of cheap knockoffs that you would find at you know some of these stores because you can't right people no people can really not just kind of copy your style it's sort of it 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.

1:17:54I 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. Now, you know, people still copy me. In fact, there's this young designer who in 2016 she opened uh 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.

1:18:48And 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 talks to the lawyer, the whole thing. 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.

1:19:34And 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. Yeah. Normal, 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, you know, normally together I'd be wearing, you know, a collared shirt. And, you know, I'd be meeting Norma Kamali.

1:20:16I would dress really well. 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 want to dress in Norma Kamali stuff in like 1985. What would I look like? 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.

1:21:07I 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. 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. 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 expensive or 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.

1:22:00And, 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. 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 the early 2000s. Yes. 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 Norma Kamali T-shirts and stuff. But tell me about that partnership because, I mean, Norma Kamali, high fashion, you know, there's a certain kind of reputation.

1:22:49And Brandon, 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 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. And it sounds like that's what happened in this case, right? I mean, I think at some point, someone you knew from the industry who'd gotten a job at Walmart called you up and made some sort of offer.

1:23:42Yes. And he said, I'm going to 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 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 judgment on that so I get on a plane and then you take that little plane to Walmart to Bentonville 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, I don't even Walmart superstore in New York.

1:24:32Yeah. 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 want to 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. And somebody that was at that meeting said, we have to talk to norma but this time we'll come 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 going to be enough and they said well that's 650 ,000 units 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.

1:26:12And 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. I read that when the collection was debuted at Walmart and you were at a Walmart, people were running up to you with cash register receipts for you to autograph them. Right, right. It seems to me that part 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 like 1996.

1:26:56Yeah. And you got on – you were on eBay like really early. And I mean in the 90s, you introduced like I think a line of like home goods products. Like were all those things, was it just you following your curiosity or were these like really kind of strategic business decisions that you were making? 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.

1:27:45But 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 53 years. I've had the same job. 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, 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. But when – I mean 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.

1:28:56And I know you've got a book kind of talking a little bit about your life and also about your experience. I gather the message of your book is like, hey, 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 headline of the book in that you can get better with age. 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.

1:29:58We 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 soulmate at 65. 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 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. Do you feel that way? Yeah, she's absolutely right.

1:30:50You 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, not something to fear, but something to cherish because of the knowledge and the experience you gain in each of these decades. 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.

1:31:47You're 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 yeah part of why why so many people eat local and organic food do you do you feel like that does that um do you feel like a pioneer in that in in american fashion 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.

1:32:43I certainly don't want to have like my name on it to feel better. I just sort of feel, hmm, 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. 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. And then, 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.

1:33:24And, you know, a successful, well-known designer, how much of your story do you, and your success do you think happened because, because 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. 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, the one thing I can tell you is do not burn a bridge because that bridge is going to come around again.

1:34:15You'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.

1:34:49That'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. 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.

1:35:43That skirt probably has had 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.

1:36:07Hey, 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 GuyRoz.com. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Chris Messini, Sam Paulson, Devin Schwartz, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates.

1:36:44I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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