Happy Birthday Norma Kamali: The Pioneer Of The Athleisure Trend & E-Commerce
365 days of fashion: the e-ncyclopedia of fashion
Thursday, June 27, 2024
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How much do you know about American fashion designer Norma Kamali? Over her 57-year career, she has invented many firsts in fashion. She was one of the first designers to launch the athleisure trend, use parachutes and sleeping bags to make clothes, and adopt e-commerce.
Today, as the legendary designer celebrates her 79th birthday, let’s look closer at her iconic and innovative pieces and how she uses technology in fashion.
Norma Kamali graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a degree in fashion illustration. During her first job as a reservations agent at Northwest Airlines, she traveled to London every weekend for 4 years and brought clothes from there.
With that collection, she opened her first store in 1967 in New York with her then-husband and business partner Mohammed Hussein Kamali. After they divorced in 1975, Kamali created her own label, OMO Norma Kamali, which stood for "on my own".
She quickly started designing her own pieces. Among her most popular ones, there are:
The Hot Pants (1968)
The Diana Dress (early 70s) became one of Kamali’s top-selling items, perfect for women of all shapes.