Fashion designer goes low-tech, low-cost
NEW YORK — Norma Kamali went for 3-D video and online shopping over a traditional runway show when she rolled out her spring line last September. She earned thousands of new followers on Facebook and a nice bump in business in the process.
This time, for fall, the technology-obsessed designer kicked it old school, relatively speaking. She set up eight-foot cardboard glamazons in a showroom on a Hudson River pier and set them against a couple of regular video screens showing their real-life counterparts prancing in the same clothes.
At 66, with 45 years in the industry, Kamali’s penchant for tech has made her a pioneer. Other designers innovate, of course. They have cool websites, tweet like mad, use Facebook and blog, but Kamali has earned accolades from fashion geeks.
The purpose of the presentation at New York Fashion Week was twofold: to promote her premium brand OMO and to introduce KamaliKulture, a new under-$100 selection for all occasions in sizes zero to 18. The line will be available in early March online only, on KamaliKulture.com and at Amazon and Zappos.
“I’ve decided that in my career, empowering women should really be my goal. Women have been telling me through the years, `I used to wear your clothes but I don’t fit in them anymore, I can’t afford them,’ and I would just feel guilty.”
KamaliKulture includes timeless, corporate-ready suits in black and gray pinstripes, swimwear and easy-to-care-for jersey trousers and swingy skirts above the knee. There’s a lot of comfy jersey in black for evening and every day, and striped skirts and tops and animal prints. She hopes to follow up with shoes and sleepwear.
It’s the type of collection that fits into New York Fashion Week as QVC and more mass market and mall brands have shown up for the twice-yearly previews, something that doesn’t happen in Milan and Paris.
“It’s a different time,” Kamali said. “We’re in a different social climate. Women have a budget. We all have to work. There are very few women who have the luxury of that choice of not working now, and we all want to have new clothes because it makes us feel good, but we don’t have the money to spend on it all of the time. This is an important story for me to tell.”
And where does that fashion story unfold? Online, where more and more people shop each year, she said, and where they’re hunting down recommendations and the best prices. The experience, beginning with social media and ending with an affordable wardrobe, might even be the new fashion designer, Kamali said.
“The mid- to late-’70s were the peak of the fashion designer,” she said. “It was the exalted profession, then it changed. It went toward celebrity, but the real star today is technology. Ignoring that opportunity is closing your eyes.”