Norma Kamali: Norma Kamali

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2021

⏱️ 91 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 popularized by Farah Fawcett.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:30.0	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.
0:41.0	And so the majority of the stocks slowly became my designs, and I had a full page in Vogue, and I had a good size page in Bizarre.
0:56.0	And that was beyond belief, because I thought somebody is going to find me out.
1:03.0	I don't know what I'm doing.
1:05.0	And I'm having a full page in Vogue in Bizarre. This is nuts. Like, I don't have a clue.
1:12.0	From NPR, it's how I built this.
1:21.0	A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:28.0	I'm Guy Raus, and on the show today, how Norma Kamali built a 50-year career around hot pants, sleeping bag coats, and a pharafasa swimsuit, and helped usher in the era of American fashion design.
1:46.0	Starting a brand, and then scaling it fast, is hard.
2:00.0	The Glasses Company Warby Parker was founded in 2010, and within five years, it was valued at over a billion dollars.
2:09.0	The suitcase maker, away, was launched in 2015, and by 2019, investors valued it at $1.4 billion.
2:19.0	Both incredible achievements, and both incredibly rare achievements.
2:24.0	But what's just as hard, maybe even harder, is to build a brand that endures, that lasts a long time.
2:32.0	Think Dell computers and Southwest Airlines, or even Starbucks and Burton Snowboards, all stories we've told on the show.
2:41.0	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?
2:53.0	Well, in many ways, our story today answers that question, because fashion designer Norma Kamali figured it out.
	...

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