Norma Kamali Loves AI and Wants to Live to 121

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. I'm here in the studio today with my colleague and frequent run-through guest, Laird Borelli-Person. Thanks, Laird. Thank you for having me, Nicole. Today, we have a conversation with the legendary Norma Kamali. She has been a fixture in the fashion industry for almost 60 years, which is unbelievable, and has had an absolutely fantastic career. Laird, how did you first learn about Norma? I remember the Vogue shoot with the sweats, a sweat outfit, a dress, I think, with big shoulder pads and of course knew the sleeping bag coat but I had um thanks to you who assigned me to review Norma maybe about four or five years ago she's become one of my the people I admire most we have long appointments where we talk of course about the collection but then she has a spidey sense for for what's happening in the world and she's always moving on and she's first.

1:06So it was just a dream to be able to join you in talking with her today. I think everyone will agree that Norma has a very fast-moving brain. We had such a great visit with her in the studio. She talked about her early days, her love of AI, and how she's planning to live to 121. Here's our conversation with Norma Kamali.

1:32Welcome, Norma. Thank you so much for being here with Laird and me. Thank you very much. So excited. I'm thrilled. We have wanted to have you on the podcast for a long time. It turns out you are turning 80 this summer. For most people, 80 is a big milestone, but you think a little bit differently about it. Is that right? Well, it is a milestone, but my theory is if I celebrate it, it makes it bigger than I am envisioning 80 to be. I would like to take that to celebrate 100 since my end game is 121 now. I heard that 120 is, there are more people living to 121. So 121. So if you live for the long game, celebrating 80 is maybe a little too premature, right?

2:30So 100. So the dance party will have to wait till 100. As far as the birthday goes, dance parties we love a lot. If we can't celebrate 80 with a party party, we can celebrate your impact over the past 57 years. Can you tell us what you consider your first breakthrough? There were actually, there were so many. There were the little ones. My first shop was on East 53rd Street, and it was in the basement. So you had to look down to see the window. And I did everything possible to get attention for people to look down. And I had no idea that there were two editors, one a Vogue editor and one a Bazaar editor living on 53rd Street down one other avenue.

3:28And they would walk past every day and they noticed, you know, my screaming up to take a look, take a look. And they came in and I had within the first six months, I had a full page in Vogue and Bizarre. Hero was the photographer, the Bizarre one. And so that was like, they're going to find out that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And they're taking pictures of my, like, I'm going to get found out. But it was also, wow, maybe I should do this. Maybe this is really what's important for me to do. So it's things like that that I think every designer who's starting, those little recognitions that are so critical to getting you through when you feel like there's just no way anything good can happen.

4:30So you're bluffing your way through. Then when I did this collection, all of a sudden a lot of people knew about it. And it was really just a game changer. I never had any money to pay for anything. I would just be, okay, I need this for fabric. I need this for labor. And kind of patch it together. But it was the first time I actually had a bank account that had any meaning, not amazing meaning, but enough to feel like I may be able to make it through this year or, you know, step at a time. So there's a lot of that that I remember in my life of ups and downs. And it continues. You know, it could be COVID.

5:21It could be tariffs. It could be anything. If you own your own business, you're constantly responsible for a lot of people. And it's just the business side of it is really part of the dance. Can you talk about that sweats collection? It's an idea that has resonated, you know, decades later. In fact, Laird was pointing out that she saw a lot of sweats materials on the fall runways. How did that idea come to you to make fashion clothes in a material that had been strictly for sports people in the gym? Yeah. So in the context of the time, so Studio 54 was just reached its peak and it was, you know, there were all of those things that were going on and all of the sparkles and the color and all of that just overwhelmed fashion.

6:17And there was a point where I was feeling gray, you know, like gray is where I want to go. And I was doing my swimwear collection, and I thought I need to do cover-ups for swimwear. And I love swimming. And, in fact, I used to climb over the fence in the park across the street from my house and swim at night in the summer. Got caught once and police got me. But other than that, my swimming in the public pool would be I'd put on my brother's sweatshirt, gray sweatshirt, to soak up the water and then go swimming again. And I thought, that's what I'll do. I'll get gray sweatshirt fabric and do cover-ups.

7:08And so I got so excited because the cover-ups looked so fresh and great. And then I thought, maybe I should do a suit or a gown or, you know, everything. So I did 36 pieces of very unique styles in gray sweatshirting. And I had my history was that all of the department stores would come into my shop. They would buy samples. I would see full pages in the newspapers with Bloomingdale's and all the, you know, everybody. And they were my clothes, but I wasn't paying any rent with that money. And I thought, I am so afraid to put this in my store because it won't be mine. So I was introduced to Sidney Kimmel, who had Jones Apparel at the time.

8:11And I had a friend who was a lawyer. And I said, I need a lawyer. I need your help. and he said, these are the things you should ask for. And he gave me a list of things. I had no idea what I was doing. I had a little steno pad and I said, he said, I'd like to see the collection. I said, I'm really afraid to show it to you. And he said, well, I hear it's really great, but what is it you would like for it? And I said, I would like the following. He said, a license agreement. And I had the percentage, the fee, like everything. And he said, okay. And he shook my hand. And I was like, I don't understand this business stuff, obviously, but we had a deal.

8:54And we started to get a lot of press. And there were lines outside of these big department stores everywhere out into the street. And I thought, wow, this is really amazing because in my gut, I was feeling this is so new. This is so great. And it's gray sweatshirting. And that was sort of the timing was right. And the idea of casual sportswear wasn't sort of a concocted theory I had. it just accidentally evolved and intuitively felt right. Now, another one of your most famous inventions also deals with comfort or transforming something that is functional into fashion, which is the sleeping bag coat.

9:48Can we hear in your words how that came about and why it's still going strong? So I love camping. I used to love camping. I don't camp as much now. And I loved the rapids and, you know, canoeing, all of that. And I would go camping every weekend. And I had sleeping bag coats, tents, the whole deal. And one sort of late summer night, it was really, really cold. And I typically get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom in the woods. And I was like, I'm taking my sleeping bag with me. And I had it wrapped. And as I'm walking, I'm thinking, I need to put sleeves in this. I need to put a collar on it.

10:43And so I took that same sleeping bag when I got home. And I couldn't wait to cut it up. And I cut it up. And I had no waste at all. I used every single piece of it except for the zipper that I took off. And I thought, this is great. It's so warm. It's so comfortable that you just want to sleep in it and you feel cozy. So then I just started doing them out of sleeping bags. And I would buy all kinds of sleeping bags with ducks and geese flying and, you know, with flannel and the inside and great colors. And then it just really took off and I started to then make them from scratch using the NASA concept where it's you make two coats and you sew them together and there's an air pocket in between.

11:40so the heat from your body goes out to the air pocket and the cold from outside goes to the air pocket and it exchanges there and so that simple concept, which is actually a NASA concept, like I said, really keeps you warm and depending on the fabrics, the coat can be light and easy to, and you roll it up and put it away in the summer and take it out every year. I want to interject here because I think young people might not understand. They might ask, well, that sounds like a puffer jacket. But we're talking about a time when people dressed very differently than they do today, right? People wore dress coats made of wool.

12:26So can you take us back to that moment? How different were these ideas about comfort and style and wrapping those together compared to what else was going on? So there was the benefit of this 60s revolution where things were radically different than before. However, there were protocols. People were still, for example, traveling on planes dressed up. Like you got dressed to travel even in the 70s. I mean, it's just you did. So there were styles that just didn't exist then. I mean, I remember the first time I did stretch pants and I bought the fabric at a fabric store that sold fabric for the circus.

13:25and it was girdle fabric that stretched and I got black satin and pink and I remember I had my first fashion show and I put these stretch pants in the show and people thought I had lost my mind because nobody wore clothes that were like that, that were fitted to the body in that way. So there were silhouettes and shapes that didn't exist at the time. And a big, puffy shape like that just didn't exist. It didn't exist in any other form, which is what you were saying. There were more tailored styles or leather jackets did exist and suede, obviously, 70s. But that big shape or skinny fitted pants, there were things that just didn't fit to the time.

14:20And so active sportswear came later. It evolved later. And it was actually sort of around that, the terry, the gray fleece, there was then this next evolution of clothes like this. And in fact, I remember working with a company to do cotton lycra. Right while I was doing these pants, I thought this would be so great in cotton. I wonder if this is possible. And there was a company, Darlington, that still exists today. And they said they would work with me doing cotton lycra. for 1 ,500 yards we were only able to get 500 good yards because it was so new the cotton would break with the elastic and it didn't so they obviously weren't rushing to lose more money to do it.

15:18And I would keep saying, can we do it? Can we do it? And eventually it took a couple of years before cotton lycra could actually be made. So to even, as I say it, it's almost hard for me to believe because it's so natural in all the fabrics that have stretch in them. Nothing had stretch in it then. So the shapes, the attitude of casual, active sports were just very different. More with Norma Kamali after the break.

15:58Thank you.

16:28Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

16:35I'm curious to hear what you think about New York now, because I look around and there is a lot of athleisure. Everyone looks a lot. Yes, you're doing it very cool. But there is a sense of people sort of dressing the same. And I wonder if you notice that or if you are able to see pockets of individuality. Um, I think approval is very important right now. And I think social media is intimidating. And I think it's a it's a different time. The expressing how you look has a lot of parameters. Now, there's a lot of rules, quiet rules on what is right and how you should look. and influencers even behave properly, right?

17:32They are not going to go too far out on a limb. And even celebrities that look amazing that we just celebrate because they know how to carry it off, they're still following certain quiet rules, right? This is red carpet. This is certain situations you dress in this way. So Cher, for example, would do any red carpet but in her way, right? That would be very different, and you expected it to be that way. I remember doing Raquel Welsh almost every Oscar, whatever. She would either be a presenter or a celebrity to be seen. And we would spend so much time planning what her look would be. And she was very aware of her body and how she should look.

18:28And so she was still standing out from the way everyone else looked. And there was more of that and less than these rules. It's also extremely global right now, too. So it's not that it's bad now. It's that these are the forces that we all deal with. And the authenticity is harder to find, but it exists. And when you see it, you know that this is authentic. Just like designers, you can tell. This new designer is really authentic. This is what you are aware of immediately. And so it still exists, but different rules, different times. I wanted to go back to something that we talked about when we had our meeting for your resort collection last week.

19:26And you were telling me, I'm listening to you talk about influencers and how people are gathering information and where. And you told me about your inspiration that came from a New York institution, the Costume Institute. And I think that was really interesting because you couldn't even mimeograph. And I think listening to you talk about creating a self and how you gathered references was really interesting. And I wondered if you could share that with our listeners. So I really didn't want to be in fashion. I wanted to be a painter. So I studied anatomy. And then I thought, oh, I need to—my mother kept saying, you better get a job.

20:10So this painting thing, like, get it out of your head. So I thought, okay, I'll go to FIT. Fortunately, I got a scholarship. So I studied fashion illustration. So I was very interested in the illustrators that used anatomy in the way they drew the human form and the way they drew the fabric draped over the human form. And so the best place to see it would be to go to the library in this special room in the museum. And it wasn't too much bigger than this room. It may be double the size. And there were magazines and references. But you couldn't obviously take a picture. I wouldn't even have a camera to take a picture.

21:05You couldn't in any way copy what you were seeing. And you couldn't even sketch it. Very strict rules. There was always somebody around looking. so I would have to literally memorize everything I saw in the picture but seriously memorize it so there was a point and I think I've shed most of that now but I'm sure it could come back where I could tell you in 1939 in the fall these were the top design looks these were the shoes that were worn these were the hats that were worn And this was the kind of jewelry, and I would memorize it all, but memorizing also the gestures, right, the gestures of those illustrations.

21:59And I fell in love with fashion almost reluctantly because my intention, Michelangelo, was all over my walls in my room, not fashion. And then Sargent started to, I understood, okay, this is a source of it. But really having that reference was so incredible for me to see all of this magic that was happening in fashion magazines that I couldn't afford, quite frankly. I couldn't buy all of these magazines. And going back to see them through the years was just the best education. What Norma is saying right now is reminding me of that post we just saw on Instagram, using AI makes you stupid. Obviously, if you pay a lot of attention and concentrate on these things, your brain is going to work and your hand drawing and designing is going to work a lot differently than if you rely on computers and artificial intelligence to do the work for you.

23:05Yeah, but I'm a big fan of artificial intelligence. Oh, that's true. Maybe we should jump to that. So my response to that would be that the assistance that you can get through artificial intelligence, the support, the amount of information and the frequency and the instant answer is incredibly helpful in so many ways. is because now all of the time that it takes to do some of this laborious stuff that we all do, and you then take that time to do the creative part of it, and you have all of this information, whether you're a writer or a designer, whatever that is, I think is going to benefit everyone.

24:00I just did a review with my staff. Instead of me reviewing them, I had them. I had five questions they should review themselves. And these were my questions. So I was just going to listen. And everybody knows I'm a big fan of AI. I want them to use it every day. And I was very much aware of the fact that they all used AI to do their presentations. presentations and so I thought it was very funny except when they wanted to read their I was like no no no no you can give me that and now tell me but what happened was they had great presentations part of them were they needed to contribute ideas for their department for their job what could make it better, and then for the company.

24:53And so they had a good framework to start with, and then they personalized it. And we have so many great ideas, and now we're having meetings about how to implement those ideas. So I really think because they used it, it's a more focused, energetic approach to solving problems that exist in departments in the company that we want to make better. So I'm a fan.

25:26We'll be right back with Norma Kamali.

25:37Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, Senior Awards Correspondent at Vanity Fair and co-host of Little Gold Men. Oscar season is upon us. Little Gold Men takes you behind the scenes of the race for the biggest prize in Hollywood. There's a hundred wrestlers in the room, but only one can be Oscar nominated. Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts.

26:14Now, in addition to fashion for everyone, because you are very careful about your prices and options. You've also worked with choreographers and directors doing costumes. In particular, you did The Wiz, which must have been exciting. I didn't do the whole film of The Wiz. I did Emerald City, and that was really so much fun. And, of course, I love designing for dancers and athletes because it goes back to anatomy and swimwear. And doing the costumes for something that was just such a fantasy, everything in red, yellow, green, right here, filming it right down here, it was just a joy. And I remember they invited me to come down for different filmings, and I would come down, and I remember seeing this young guy who was with the Jackson 5 who now had this role on his own and nobody had seen him on his own.

27:22And I remember coming back to the office saying, oh, my God, you're going to see this kid. Remember the kid that was in Jackson 5? Like, he is unbelievable. I think he's going to be a big star. Like, oh, my God, wait till you check him out. Yeah, he was definitely, you could feel, this energy that was just so incredible. And then we were doing research, and I discovered that you also did the Chaka Khan's clothes for her video, I Feel For You. Yeah, I did a lot of those. In fact, Sly and the Family Stone, I know Sly just died. and I made him, just everybody I have to say, somehow I ended up doing clothes for a broad assortment of creative people and he, I did a lot of things for him and he had great style and he, I did feather jackets.

28:29I used to do these big puffy feather jackets And he would want one in different colors all the time. And he would wear them and just sweat and sweat and sweat into them. And he'd like want another one in yellow and another one. So it's really if you go through the musicians and singers of different periods somehow. And I've never given free clothes to people, by the way. It's like that's not I could never afford to give free clothes to people. But somehow I managed to be lucky enough to have fun doing stuff like that. Shifting gears a bit, all of us are curious about and eager for love. And you found love in your 70s, right?

29:21You are recently married? Recently married, but Ian introduced me to Marty when I was 65. And I was convinced that other people would have soulmates, that it probably wasn't for me. I didn't, you know, I just, you know, I have lots of great friends. Just thought maybe that's not going to be my thing. I had boyfriends, but not anything that, like, marry somebody. No, no, no, no. That's not going to happen. But I actually met my soulmate at 65, which tells you that we really are in such a different time, not only because of longevity, but because people are more vital and they're more engaged. And I think everybody has a time that is the time that something like that happens.

30:25And dismissing it is not a good thing. Being open to it is probably the best approach. So I'm very lucky. And yes, we got married two years ago. And go figure. You are so admired by so many people. And some of the people that are listening to this podcast are students. And we're wondering what advice you might give to them for those who are trying to find success in fashion. Well, it's very different for students now than when I started. So my personal experience as advice is not something I would give. In ways, it's so much easier now and also so much harder. I think access to global awareness is easier.

31:24And if you have a website or you use social media in a clever way, and if you're authentic and you tell your story in an authentic way, you really have a great opportunity. There's a chance that somebody, maybe a Vogue editor, maybe just like for me, or maybe an opportunity will come if you truly have original thoughts and creativity. It is so much harder because it's so much more expensive to do anything now. My first store was$285 a month. I was in a basement, but I also didn't have expectations that I needed to have a fashion show right away and I needed to be famous and rich. I never had that notion at all.

32:22I just wanted to be creative. So it took me 14, 15 years to have any recognition that was bigger than maybe Sly and all of these people that were buying things for me. But the idea that I had to have a fashion show right away was no. So I fell on my face many times, made mistakes many times, but not a lot of people saw that. And so time was on my side. For me personally, this is totally personal. So I think it depends on the individual. Is it creativity that's your drive and your motivation to live a creative life? for me totally above everything else? Is it to be famous and recognized? Well, that's true for a lot of people who are creative.

33:26And that can work, maybe not for a long time, but that can work. So I think know thyself is the key. Who are you? What is it you want? And how will you achieve it? And can you achieve it without selling half of your business before you have a business? So that's a big thought process. Now, I'm talking about an entrepreneurial type. There are other designers that feel more comfortable working for a brand and being supported and sponsored by a brand. And again, that was not something that I could even imagine in my head. But I had great opportunities like Walmart and other companies that I learned so much from and loved working with.