Norma Kamali ( Arraez; b. June 27, 1945) is an American fashion designer. She is best known for the "sleeping bag" coat, garments made from silk parachutes, and versatile multi-use pieces.

Early life and education

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 Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. She aspired to be a painter. Kamali attended the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...

and earned a degree in illustration. Upon graduating, Kamali worked as a freelance fashion illustrator for a year. She also worked for Northwest Orient Airlines from 1966 to 1967.

Designs

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. Kamali designed the red one-piece bathing suit worn by

Farrah Fawcett Farrah Leni Fawcett (born Ferrah Leni Fawcett; February 2, 1947 – June 25, 2009) 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 playe ...

in the iconic 1976 poster 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 The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...

in 2011. She is one of several designers credited with popularizing the

shoulder pad 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 ...

in womenswear in the 1980s and played a prominent role in adapting exaggerated shoulder pads to casual clothes at the beginning of the eighties shoulder-pad era in 1978. She reached a peak of fame during the early 1980s with her 1980 "Sweats" collection, a variety of casual garments done in sweatshirt fabric, most famously flounced, hip-yoked

miniskirts A miniskirt (sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, separated as mini skirt, or sometimes shortened to simply mini) is a skirt with its hemline well above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level, normally no longer than below the buttocks; and a ...

called rah-rah skirts in the UK, a style she had first presented in other fabrics in 1979. Her work is included in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. Kamali was the first designer to create an online store on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

. In addition to designing clothing, she has also produced a fitness, health and beauty line. In 2008, Kamali produced a collection for

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

Awards and honors

In 2010 Kamali received an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

from her alma mater,

. In 1981 Kamali won a

Coty Award The Coty American Fashion Critics' Awards (awarded 1943–1984) were created in 1942 by the cosmetics and perfume company Coty, Inc. to promote and celebrate American fashion, and encourage design during the Second World War. In 1985, the Coty Awa ...

, called the "Winnie" but formally titled the American Fashion Critics' Award. Kamali has a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame. She received the CFDA Board of Directors Special Tribute Award in 2005, and was awarded the CFDA Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, which was presented to her by

Michael Kors Michael David Kors (born Karl Anderson Jr. August 9, 1959) is an American fashion designer. He is the chief creative officer of his brand, Michael Kors, which sells men's and women's ready-to-wear, accessories, watches, jewelry, footwear, and f ...

. In 2019, Kamali received the

Women's Entrepreneurship Day Women's Entrepreneurship Day (WED) is a day on which the work of women entrepreneurs is observed and discussed, held every day of each year. The inaugural event was held in New York City at the United Nations, with additional events being held si ...

Pioneer Award Additional WED
Kamali Normal Kamali profile
accessed January 14, 2020, an
archived
December 6, 2019. at the United Nations in recognition for her achievements in the fashion industry.

Personal life

In 1968, she married Mohammad 'Eddie' Kamali. They divorced in 1977. She is engaged to longtime partner, Marty Edelman. Kamali is of Lebanese and

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

descent.

References

External links

Norma Kamali Collection websitePhotos: What Millennials Like Me Can Learn From 70-Year-Old Norma Kamali
Emilia Petrarca,

W Magazine ''W'' is an American fashion magazine that features stories about style through the lens of culture, fashion, art, celebrity, and film. W was created in 1972 by James Brady, the publisher of sister magazine ''Women's Wear Daily'' (''WWD''), ori ...

, June 6, 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kamali, Norma 1945 births Artists from New York City Living people American fashion designers American women fashion designers American people of Basque descent American people of Lebanese descent Fashion Institute of Technology alumni 21st-century American women