Longevity has been Norma Kamali’s hobby horse for a while now. Having explored the subject in the context of wellness, more recently she’s started considering how longevity can be related to legacy. She seems to find a way forward with technology. Armed with a certificate in generative AI from MIT and able partners, Kamali has created a proprietary AI program fed solely with images of her designs, which she decided to put to the test, asking the machine how it might iterate on an archival dress of alternating bands of black opaque and tan sheer fabric, and included the AI versions alongside the original in the lookbook.
This experiment had little to do with the overall garden party (real or state of mind) theme, featuring interchangeable designs in what Kamali called “slightly off colors” of “vintage green, asparagus, baby pink and cappuccino,” that played well off each other. If only politicians could do the same: “I think about what’s going on in the world; it can’t get any more complicated than it is,” said the designer, who decided to lean into optimism by choosing “color and the light.”
Not wanting customers to have to lighten their wallets, Kamali has focused on keeping prices low and thinking how her pieces can be variously combined or styled to create many different looks with few garments.
The one-and-done draped Diana dress that Sarah Jessica Parker, as Carrie Bradshaw, re-popularized is still going strong. “I thought it was really enough,” Kamali said. Customers don’t agree, which led the designer to the conclusion that “you can’t just be feeling new all the time, you just can’t.” Her collections always include reissues; for spring she’s gone all in relaunching the convertible skirt, which has an interesting backstory.
“When I started out,” the designer related, “I never had any training in fashion, and I realized that my pattern makers were bullying me, telling me things weren’t possible, so I said, ‘I better learn how to do this because it has to be possible.’ I learned how to make patterns myself, but my skills were limited, so all the clothes I made would be so simple.” One of these was the convertible, the star of the spring 2025 collection, which Kamali describes as “basically a square with a hole,” and which is so called because of the many different ways it can be worn.
Another throwback in the collection was a slip jumpsuit with draped harem pants that was worn back in the day by the likes of Bianca Jagger and Cher. Kamali has had a lot of requests to bring it back, so she set about recreating the pattern. “So much originated in the 1970s. It was one of those new ideas times,” she mused. That decade took many cues from the ’30s, when the bias cut was first popularized. Kamali played a lot with this technique for spring, using clear straps to suspend an off-the-shoulder look, creating pretty necklines, and versatile skirts.
