Norma Kamali | |
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| Born | Norma Arraez June 27, 1945 New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Fashion Institute of Technology |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
| Years active | 1968–present |
| Website | normakamali |
Norma Kamali (born June 27, 1945) [1] is an American fashion designer and entrepreneur best known for the "Sleeping Bag" Coat, sweats as everyday sportswear, and swimwear. She lives in New York City [2]
Norma Arraez was born on June 27, 1945, to Estrella C. Galib Arraez Granofsky and Salvador Mariategui William Arraez, a middle class family residing in Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City. [1] [3] She is of Lebanese and Basque descent. [4] Aspiring to become a painter. [3] Kamali attended the Fashion Institute of Technology and earned a degree in illustration. [3] [5] Upon graduation, she worked as a freelance fashion illustrator for a year. She also worked for Northwest Orient Airlines from 1966 to 1967. [6]
In 1969, Kamali opened a boutique with her then-husband Mohammed Houssein Kamali. She became known for her line of clothing made of real silk parachute material, which included the innovation of being adjustable in length and fit by draw string. [7] Kamali designed the red one-piece bathing suit worn by Farrah Fawcett in the iconic 1976 poster [8] and the bathing suit worn by Whitney Houston on the back cover of her 1985 debut album. Farrah Fawcett's suit was donated to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2011. [9] She is one of several designers credited with popularizing the shoulder pad in women's wear in the 1980s [10] [11] and played a prominent role in adapting exaggerated shoulder pads to casual clothes at the beginning of the eighties shoulder-pad era in 1978. [12] She reached a peak of fame during the early 1980s [13] with her 1980 "Sweats" collection, a variety of casual garments done in sweatshirt fabric, most famously flounced, hip-yoked miniskirts called rah-rah skirts in the UK, [14] a style she had first presented in other fabrics in 1979. [15] Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [16]
Kamali was the first designer to create an online store on eBay. [2] In addition to designing clothing, she has also produced a fitness, health and beauty line. [17] In 2008, Kamali produced a collection for Walmart. [18]
After completing a generative AI course at MIT in 2023, [19] Kamali trained an AI to produce clothing designs in her style. [20] [21]
In 2021, Kamali published a memoir entitled I Am Invincible. [22]
In 1981, Kamali won a Coty Award, called the "Winnie" but formally titled the American Fashion Critics' Award. [23] She received the CFDA Board of Directors Special Tribute Award in 2005, [2] and was awarded the CFDA Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, [3] which was presented to her by Michael Kors. [24] In 2019, Kamali received the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Pioneer Award [25] at the United Nations.
In 2010, Kamali received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Fashion Institute of Technology. [26]
Kamali has a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame. [18]
In 1968, she married Mohammad 'Eddie' Kamali. They divorced in 1977. She got engaged to her longtime partner, Marty Edelman, in 2020. [27]
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent, better known as Yves Saint Laurent or YSL, was a French fashion designer who, in 1962, founded his eponymous fashion label. He is regarded as being among the foremost fashion designers of the twentieth century.
Christian Ernest Dior was a French fashion designer and founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. His fashion house is known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade."
Donna Karan, also known as DK, is an American fashion designer and the creator of the Donna Karan New York and DKNY clothing labels.
Karl Otto Lagerfeld was a German fashion designer, photographer, and creative director.
A miniskirt is a skirt with its hemline well above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level, normally no longer than 10 cm (4 in) below the buttocks; and a dress with such a hemline is called a minidress or a miniskirt dress. A micro-miniskirt or microskirt is a miniskirt with its hemline at the upper thigh, at or just below crotch or underwear level.
Farrah Leni Fawcett was an American actress. A four-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee and six-time Golden Globe Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she played a starring role in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels.
Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy was a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded the luxury fashion and perfume house of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the personal and professional wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn and clothing for Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1970.
The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college under the State University of New York, in New York City. It focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It was founded in 1944.
Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, known mononymously as Valentino, is an Italian fashion designer, the founder of the Valentino brand and company. His main lines include Valentino, Valentino Garavani, Valentino Roma, and R.E.D. Valentino.
A hobble skirt was a skirt with a narrow enough hem to significantly impede the wearer's stride. It was called a "hobble skirt" because it seemed to hobble any woman as she walked. Hobble skirts were a short-lived fashion trend that peaked between 1908 and 1914.
Perry Edwin Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded his eponymous sportswear house in the mid-1970s. Ellis' influence on the fashion industry has been called "a huge turning point" because he introduced new patterns and proportions to a market which was dominated by more traditional men's clothing.
Manfred Thierry Mugler was a French fashion designer, creative director and creative adviser of Mugler. In the 1970s, Mugler launched his eponymous fashion house; and quickly rose to prominence in the following decades for his avant-garde, architectural, hyperfeminine and theatrical approach to haute couture. He was one of the first designers to champion diversity in his runway shows, which often tackled racism and ageism, and incorporated non-traditional models such as drag queens, porn stars, and transgender women. In 2002, he retired from the brand, and returned in 2013 as the creative adviser.
Fashion of the 1980s was characterized by a rejection of 1970s fashion. Punk fashion began as a reaction against both the hippie movement of the past decades and the materialist values of the current decade. The first half of the decade was relatively tame in comparison to the second half, which was when apparel became very bright and vivid in appearance.
Azzedine Alaïa was a Tunisian couturier and shoe designer, particularly successful beginning in the 1980s.
Fashion in the 1970s was about individuality. In the early 1970s, Vogue proclaimed "There are no rules in the fashion game now" due to overproduction flooding the market with cheap synthetic clothing. Common items included mini skirts, bell-bottoms popularized by hippies, vintage clothing from the 1950s and earlier, and the androgynous glam rock and disco styles that introduced platform shoes, bright colors, glitter, and satin.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America, Inc. (CFDA), founded in 1962 by publicist Eleanor Lambert, and headquartered in Manhattan, is a not-for-profit trade association comprising a membership of over 450 American fashion and accessory designers. The organization promotes American designers' participation in the global economy.
Shoulder pads are a type of fabric-covered padding used in men's and women's clothing to give the wearer the illusion of having broader and less sloping shoulders. In the beginning, shoulder pads were shaped as a semicircle or small triangle and were stuffed with wool, cotton, or sawdust. They were positioned at the top of the sleeve to extend the shoulder line. A good example of this is their use in "leg o' mutton" sleeves or the smaller puffed sleeves which are based on styles from the 1890s. In men's styles, shoulder pads are often used in suits, jackets, and overcoats, usually sewn at the top of the shoulder and fastened between the lining and the outer fabric layer. In women's clothing, their inclusion depends on the fashion taste of the day. Although from a non-fashion point of view they are generally for people with narrow or sloping shoulders, there are also quite a few cases in which shoulder pads will be necessary for a suit or blazer in order to compensate for certain fabrics' natural properties, most notably suede blazers, due to the weight of the material. There are also periods when pads intended to exaggerate the width of the shoulders are favored. As such, they were popular additions to clothing during the 1930s and 1940s; the 1980s ; and the late 2000s to early 2010s.
Fern Mallis was the executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) from 1991 to 2001, and created 7th on Sixth productions or New York Fashion Week as it is known today. She was also senior vice president of IMG Fashion from 2001 to 2010. Mallis is currently president of her own international fashion and design consultancy, Fern Mallis LLC. She received her BFA from University at Buffalo.
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The Farrah Fawcett red swimsuit poster shows a photograph of the American model and actress Farrah Fawcett taken by the American photographer Bruce McBroom in 1976. It was commissioned by the Pro Arts poster company, which published it as a pin-up poster the same year. With more than twelve million copies sold, it is considered the best-selling poster to date and is said to be a modern icon and a symbol of the late 1970s.
...[In] the late `70s...really big shoulders reappeared,...broader than ever. Reactions to the doorway-wide affairs generally ranged from 'not for me' to 'never!'...In the spring of `81, Kamali slipped oversized shoulder pads into vastly oversized sweatshirts in a collection of sportswear that took off overnight and found women, girls and even kids across the country happily looking like female footballers.... Since then, shoulder pads have become a way of life to the fashion-conscious,...
Norma Kamali...has become famous for her parachute dresses, sexy, shirred bathing suits, pegged, draped skirts...and...padded shoulders.
One year ago [1982], all you saw being worn by fashionable women was Norma Kamali.
Norma Kamali launched her 'sweats' collection: rah-rah skirts, leggings and jogging suits cut in grey and brightly coloured cotton sweatshirting. The tops often had huge, American-footballer shoulder pads. These low-priced co-ordinates were copied worldwide.
Kenzo, Chloé and others now showed pretty, floral printed-cotton versions of the rah-rah introduced by Kamali and [Perry] Ellis in 1979.
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