Where is norma kamali from

Anna Sui, designer: When I was at Parsons, I lived on the block where her boutique was, and my roommate worked there, so that was the gold standard—Norma Kamali clothes. Even the New York Dolls were buying clothes from her. They were my neighbors. Betsey Bunky Nini [was on the block], too, and then there was Sweet Shop.

Sylvain Sylvain , founding member and guitarist of the New York Dolls, designer: This was just after we finished recording our first album [in ]. Johnny met Norma or her husband [of the time, Eddie] and we sublet it. They had wallpapered it with a maroon crushed velvet—me and Johnny used to call it The Coffin!

Anna Sui: [Norma] was always there, and she was always head to toe in her [designs]. She would change the shop interiors along with the collections. At one point there were snakeskin walls and a lot of snakeskin clothes, and then another time it was all velvet patchwork, and she patchworked all the walls.

Then another time it was all tartans, and she did these beautiful tailored tartan suits, and the walls were all covered in tartan. They were stretchy and a lot higher-waisted. When you saw someone wearing her clothes, they looked sharp! She used good materials—silks and good cottons and Lycra.

She was selling kind of an updated version of that look—high-waisted pants and pedal pushers. I just adored her. I loved not just what she was doing, but her own persona, which was very glamorous.

I would hang out at the store. Vera Wang, designer and former Vogue editor: I lived in that store. When I was an editor at Vogue , [Norma] was someone whom I promoted relentlessly because I really believed in her sense of body and modernity and comfort and line. I was a ballet dancer and a figure skater, and Norma always seemed to incorporate that naturally into her designs. Bette Midler: It was very deluxe. Always two or three colors, maybe. It was the women who liked, in that era, Ungaro or Vicky Tiel, but Norma was way more affordable.

The shop itself was beautiful. She always worked with Bob Currie, a mutual friend of ours, who did the interiors and the architecture of the store. She feels this will allow her to share the information she is finding to the everyday challenges the toxic planet present us with. She launched her company website in and was one of the first fashion designers to do so. Her staff offers support for clients through vehicles like Skype.

Since Norma has been in retail since , she is constantly looking for ways to transition retail innovation alongside her online presence. At her flagship store in New York City, bar codes are used to scan and shop from her window and displays throughout the store. She recently replaced her mannequins with 8-foot Glamazon cut-outs of models in her latest collections.

For her Spring Fashion Week Presentation, Norma co-directed a Fashion Film in 3D, launched the first ever 3D online shopping pages and introduced an interactive game where people can choose items that do not belong in the film and win prizes.

Dance parties and beach karaoke events are all part of the new social shopping experiences. Her longevity in the business has three generations of women wearing her clothing. Kamali was the first designer to create an online store on eBay. Now she has a web site where she sells lots of all her clothes.

Even in the early s Kamali was ahead of the retro curve, including flared trousers, reminiscent of those styles popular in the s and s, in her collection. There, in Room her former homeroom class , she has created a state-of-the-art design laboratory where she instructs students in fashion design every other week. Kamali's creativity has been recognized through a number of awards from such fashion institutions as the Coty American Fashion Critics, Council of Fashion Designers of America, the Fashion Group, and the Fashion Walk of Fame, to name just a few.

She remains in one of America's most inventive and witty designers. See also Retro Styles ; Swimwear. Baker, Therese Duzinkiewicz. James Fashion Encyclopedia. Edited by Richard Martin. Detroit, Mich. Lencek, Lena, and Gideon Bosker. Making Waves: Swimsuits and the Undressing of America. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, Milbank, Caroline Rennolds.

Norma Kamali has been in the fashion industry for over 50 years and is known for her innovative designs. She designed the Sleeping Bag Coat on a camping trip in the seventies, as well as multi-style jersey dresses. Her swimwear has made a global influence for over forty years. The Parachute Collection is in several notable museums and is still evolving as part of her collection today.

In Norma introduced her sweats collection that became the forerunner of what is today called Active and Athleisure Wear.