Women’s Wednesdays are back this week to celebrate Women’s History Month with another incredible woman who may not be familiar to you. We started by celebrating a modern musical group. Last week, we went back to the 1990s. This week we celebrate Norma Kamali.
American fashion designer Norma Kamali may not be a household name, but is someone that everyone who lived and loved the 1980s should recognize from the styles that were popular in that day...and have made a comeback. No, she's not the creator of mom jeans, but rather the designer who popularized that ever-so-stylish 80s must-have: shoulder pads!
Yes, ladles and jellyspoons, that is Norma wearing one of her own designs to the Coty American Fashion Critics' Awards in 1982. This was the quintessential 80s look...big hair and all.
Besides this innovation, Kamali is also known for creating the sleeping bag coat, popularizing sweats, beginning the casual sportswear movement, parachute clothing, and more. One of her swimsuits popularized in a 1976 poster (if you're old enough to remember Charlie's Angels without Cameron Diaz) can be found in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Her designs were cutting edge and gender-fluid in a time of antiquated social norms, but have influenced modern style perhaps more than any designer from the late 70s and early 80s. She is still active in fashion today and her styles have changed with the times. Maybe the times have actually changed with her. Kamali's boutique, founded in 1969, is still in business today on 56th Street in NYC.
Kamali is not just a pioneer in fashion. She is also the founder of the Wellness Café in New York City, a cosmetics branch of her company called NORMALIFE, and the founder of the Stop Objectification Campaign. This group works to solve one of the biggest problems in modern society - the objectification of women's bodies.
Kamali has been recognized for her work in fashion and beyond. She was awarded her own Coty Award in 1982; served on the Board of Directors for the Council of Fashion Designers of America; won a CFDA award in 2005; has a plaque on the Fashion Walk of Fame in New York; won the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016; and was given a Women's Entrepreneurship Day Pioneer Award in 2019 by the United Nations for her work in fashion, wellness programs (yes, those existed pre-2020), and philanthropy.
For a slideshow of Kamali and some of her styles through the years, click here.
To check in on how life is treating Kamali, read this article from People in January 2021 - "Norma Kamali on Getting Engaged at 75 and Planning to Live to 120: 'I'm Excited by Life.'"