Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Styling Beyoncé, Cher, and J.Lo: Norma Kamali’s Rise from Losing Her Company to Dressing Icons

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Norma Kamali built a business with her then-husband, but he controlled the money and decisions and even rehired the woman she had fired. Realizing the partnership was toxic, she walked away with just $98. No company. No safety net. No guarantees. Most people would have crumbled, but Norma reinvented herself. Within months, her bold designs took off, attracting lifelong, high-profile clients. Five decades later, she is still shaping the industry. In this episode, she joins Ilana to share how she overcame early setbacks, left a toxic partnership, and built lasting success. Norma Kamali is a fashion designer and entrepreneur known for her bold, timeless designs. Her designs have been worn by stars across generations. Always innovating, she recently explored AI, training a model to create designs in her signature style. In this episode, Ilana and Norma will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (01:49) Finding Her Path as a Child (04:09) How Her Mother Shaped Her Ambition (10:33) Discovering a Passion for Drawing (14:41) Pursuing Fashion Illustration (16:42) Walking Out of a Humiliating Job Interview (18:32) How an Airline Job Led Her into Fashion (23:22) Starting a Fashion Business Accidentally (30:48) Marriage, Business, and a Toxic Partnership (36:42) Leaving Her Company with Just $98 (41:50) Rebuilding as Omo Norma Kamali (46:06) Styling Celebrities Across Generations (49:52) Mastering Sales and Its Challenges (54:42) Norma’s Secret to Navigating Fear in Business (56:32) Embracing AI and Future Plans (01:00:28) The Mindset That Turns Failure into Fuel Norma Kamali is a fashion designer and entrepreneur known for her bold, timeless designs. Over the past five decades, she has helped shape fashion, from popularizing shoulder pads in the 1980s to creating iconic pieces like the sleeping bag coat, high-heeled sneakers, and Farrah Fawcett’s red swimsuit. Her designs have been worn by stars across generations. Always innovating, she recently explored AI, training a model to create designs in her signature style. Connect with Norma: Norma’s Website: normakamali.com  Norma’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/norma-kamali-inc./  Norma’s Instagram: instagram.com/normakamali  Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training

Well, I am so excited about the show today, and I'm sure you're going to have an amazing time listening. But I have a favor to ask. See, I'm on a mission to help millions leap their careers, elevate their careers, land their dream rules, fast-track to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, create portfolio careers. And this podcast is about giving you the map of how some of the biggest leaders of our time reach success.

So subscribe, download to never miss it. Plus it really, really helps us continue to bring amazing guests your way. So let's dive in. Being afraid is real, but trying to mitigate the seriousness of what's frightening you is key. Norma Kamali, not only a designer and entrepreneur, she literally brought fashion to the US

and for 57 years, dressed stars like Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez and some of the biggest names in the music and entertainment business. I got married so young. The relationship was very abusive. I mean, he never touched me, but relationship was very abusive. I mean he never touched me but it was verbally abusive. He'd been dating the salesgirl and I had fired her several times and he rehired her several times and when she came in to tell me

that she was gonna start designing I said, oh. And I packed up my things and I walked out. I had $98 to my name. Why do you think the stars suddenly got so drawn to Norma Kamali? It was. Norma Kamali, not only a designer and entrepreneur, she literally brought fashion to the US and for what, 57 years dressed stars like Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez and Cher and Rob Stewart and I can go on and on and some of the biggest names in the music and entertainment business. What a story, Norma.

It's such a great pleasure to have you on the show. Well, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I want to take you back in time. Let's go to memory line. What was your childhood like? Did you know that you're going to be this incredible entrepreneur doing massive fashion?

And tell me a little more. It's really interesting. It's a great question because I actually was just speaking with Twilight Tharp and we were talking about our childhoods. And I remember growing up in Manhattan in a neighborhood with a lot of kids, and we would always be out on the street playing and doing stuff together.

And when we didn't have something to do, I felt that I had to come up with something. So I would make up these games and make up stuff for everybody to do. And they would ask me what's next. And I would make up more. And she was saying the same thing, that she would organize these things. And she didn't know why, but she was just organizing them and i think that for anybody in your audience who is one of these people. Who has a child and we recognize that it's realizing that it is a childhood.

a childhood action that really identifies the core principle of who a human is going to be or what they're going to do. So I'm still coming up with games for everybody to play and she's coming up with things for her dancers to do. And we were really laughing about it. But I think that's the best telltale sign as to what your path is going to be, even more than if you know what you're going to be doing. But there's a character trait that obviously is defined very early. And I love that because success leaves clues. We just need to find the clues, right?

And we need to connect those dots and they don't initially connect. And for you, you also went through some things in your family that started shaping you a little bit. Can you share a little bit about how did that all shape you? One of the things that I think about is, when my parents were divorced, it was very rare that this happened.

And I grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood, and you might have gathered that I'm not Irish, and that we were a little different, but the church was very involved in the neighborhood. So it was a big disgrace. And my mother really showed great resolve and determination to be a single mom when nobody else was a single mom in the neighborhood or that we knew of. And she just got a job, a simple job in a factory. She had to support us.

And I saw this incredible strength to do everything she could for the family, for my brother and myself. And I remember I was around 11. She said to me, Norma, I want you to keep in mind you have to be your own person. You have to learn how to support yourself. So the man you marry has to be the man you love, not the man that you want to take care of you." And I did not understand what she was talking about. I was like, okay, Mom, okay, sounds good. And I thought, I don't know what she's talking about here. But then, oh, okay, I get it. And it made an impression on me.

And I really appreciate that she was so honest with me about the importance of being able to support myself and be independent at the same time. And I think when she said that, it was very rare. There was something very rare at that time, right? Because to some extent, you did get married in order for somebody to take care of you and you in return have babies, right? Like there was a little bit of a, am I right?

Well, that's what women did. It was the role that you raise a family. And now when I was 11, it was 1956. So put us in context of that time, nobody had TVs and very few people. And not everybody had telephones. I mean, it's an incredible thing to think of. And my mother is talking to me about being an independent woman. So really we are talking about somebody who is very unique.

And like I said, I didn't know what she was talking about until later on where I could appreciate. If I'm not mistaken, you lost your father, your stepfather. Do you remember fear? Do you remember anxiety of survival? Do you remember any of this? No. I think fear and anxiety is a modern phenomena. I think people can be afraid of the dark and of ghosts

and of things they don't know in my world in growing up, but the word anxiety, you don't even use that word in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. You're like, what the hell is wrong with you? These are words that are very self-indulgent. If you come from the childhood I came from, you would just think, what is wrong with you?

Get over it. And you got over it. And most people got over it. And if you didn't, nobody would attribute it to all of the things we think about now. And I'm wondering if maybe some of that isn't a bad idea, because you learn survival skills, and you learn things about yourself when you have to just deal with it. Deal with it, just deal with it. Nobody would say, and nobody would complain about it. If you complained, you were like, what are you,

shut up, what are you talking about? So I think the fears, of course, my mother probably, as an adult, would have more concerns because could she afford to support two children and have what we needed, not anything more, but just to make sure we had what we needed. We also had a great neighborhood where everybody took care of everyone else. The community idea was very important. In an Irish neighborhood, there's usually five to 10 kids per family.

So there was such a camaraderie and community and one big family really. We went to camp together, we did everything together. And if my mother wasn't home, somebody else's mother would make sure we had something to eat when we came home from school. My mother would do the same for somebody else's kids. So New York was an extraordinary place to grow up on the streets, learning about life. And really, I have to say, even though I didn't have a lavish sort of childhood where you had everything you could imagine, we had very little, but we had such a close bonded family of a community

that you can't imagine the talk about the strength in that and that you always felt protected by the numbers of people that were looking out for you. And you talk a little bit about falling in love a little bit with drawing or with art. Were you talented or did you just love it? What was it? I think I like alone time. I like quiet time.

And what I did was to have that quiet time, I would always have a pencil and paper and I'd always draw and I would draw anything and I would draw dresses and then I would start to draw things and I remember one of the first things I drew was this vintage typewriter my mother had and it was beautiful and it was all black and it had these raised letters and I drew every detail of the typewriter and it took me some time and I wanted it to

be exact but it had the beauty of a freehand drawing of something very static. And I remember finishing it and thinking, oh, I wanna draw something else. What else? And I would look around, what else can I draw? I think I drew everything in the apartment that we lived in, literally everything. And if my brother would sit still for a second, I would draw him and say, stop doing that.

And I would still keep drawing him. But I found a lot of comfort in drawing because it was always a surprise to see what would happen when I draw something else. And I did draw a lot of dresses, but I think it had nothing to do with wanting to be a designer. But in the 50s, the clothes of the 50s,

as we all know, of these big petticoated skirts and pencil skirts with sweaters, and all the girls that were older that would dress up for their dates or to go to dances that were wearing these clothes were so beautiful. Irish girls are spectacularly beautiful and I would draw them and look at their outfits and think, this is so great, the skirt is so full and I would draw what they were wearing and think, oh, I can't wait until I can go on a date and wear petticoats.

I would wear petticoats to school and at the time, white bucks were very popular. In order to keep white bucks clean, you'd always have this big powder thing to put on the white bucks. So I would go into my classroom, I remember, with this big petticoat skirt that was wider than the room between the desks. And I'd walk through and the skirts wouldn't fit through. And then I'd have, you'd see white footprints because I put so much powder on my box that I turn around and I'm like,

oh my God, my footprints are all over it. But that's when I realized that dressing up could be so much fun and wear petticoats and ponytails and sweaters backwards and just be cool. So that was sort of the beginning. So you loved fashion to some extent. I didn't realize that it was fashion. We didn't know about fashion.

It wasn't a conversation. It was what are the clothes of the time? Don't forget it's the 50s. And the fashion of the 50s was very high elegance or Paris type fashion, which we never knew about in our neighborhood, or what movie stars were wearing. And so what the girls in the neighborhood mostly wore was what movie stars were wearing. And that wasn't Paris fashion. It was sort of like popular kind of look of the day. So you decide to go study fashion illustration.

Why? But then eventually your first job is not related to that at all. Take a stare for a second. Your first job is not related to that at all. Take a stare for a second. I wanted to be a painter, and my mother was very clear about the fact that she wouldn't be able to put me through college. So if I wanted to go, I had to get a scholarship, and that I better think of something other than painting.

I better think of something that you can actually get a job. So I got a scholarship to FIT and I had some grants that I won for some of my paintings that gave me money for art supplies. So I was able to go to FIT and study I was able to go to FIT and study fashion illustration. So here I was drawing dresses, which was my comfort zone. And of course I could afford it because of the scholarships. And then that was where I was, but I didn't really dream to be a fashion illustrator that wasn't in my mind.

So right after that, you need to find a job because your mom makes it very clear that you need to find a job. What happened then? I actually had a really good portfolio and I had a lot of support from one of the instructors there, Anna Ishikawa, who was just unbelievable. She was very strict. She would make everybody cry.

But if you got a compliment from her, I remember she complimented my portfolio. She never complimented anybody. She complimented my portfolio that I was taking for my job interviews. And there was a white noise. I couldn't even hear anything after that. It was like, what did she say? So I felt confident about my portfolio. And I went on a job interview for Fashion Illustration

at a garment industry company. And it was a situation that was really one about objectifying a young girl coming for a job. And it was humiliating and embarrassing. Tell us about it, because I think a lot of people are going through some weird things as well. I think, you know, this first big job interview is important so you dress appropriately,

you make sure that whatever the presentation is, it's really great and it was very serious about it. And of course I hear my mother's voice, get a job, get a job, get a job, you better get this job, get a job, get a job. You better get this job, Norma. And so I walk in and he has his feet up on his desk. He's eating a tuna sandwich. And he tells me to put my portfolio down and come over to him and turn around for him. I remember I just couldn't hold it in and I just started crying and running out of the office with my portfolio, tripping over myself basically and feeling just awful and coming home and

of course my mother, did you get the job? And I was like, no mom, I didn't. And I couldn't even hear what else she was saying. And I remember the place you would look for a job was the New York Times. So they would have a big classified section. I actually think it should still exist this because it was a great way to find a job.

And so I was looking at all the jobs and I thought I I really want to travel. And at the time working at the airlines like Pan Am and TWA and Northwest Orient, that was really a great job. Not as a stewardess, but in the office. And I had zero office skills. I didn't know how to type. Actually, I still didn't know how to type.

Actually, I still don't know how to type. I got the job and I was shocked that I got it because it was very strict and a difficult interview. The next thing I know, I'm sitting in front of a UNIVAC computer and I'm totally amazed at the information that the computer is presenting. And I've thought to myself, whoa, this is really something. So if you think that's a big leap from my childhood to this Univac computer. And it's still the mid-60s. We're not talking about years ahead.

I spent four years at Northwest Airlines and traveled to London round trip for $29 for the four years. So it was as if I was living in London for that period of time. And that's when obviously that was the beginning of a revolution that starting with baby boomers changed everything and fashion changed completely. And I loved it. And I My passion changed completely and I loved it and I started buying clothes from Biba and Bus Stop and other designers, bringing them to New York for friends and then I opened a store. So wait, before we go there, so this is incredible. So you land this role that gives you, I guess, very discounted flights. Why necessarily London and why basically every year

for four years, why did you decide that London drew you at that level? Well, the first trip I landed in London and somebody at the airline said they have boarding houses you could stay at for $6 a night in this place called Chelsea. And they gave me the name of a place, so I made a reservation. And Chelsea, at the time, was the very beginning of what would be an incredible area. It was an artist's area that then had these amazing shops that opened and everybody in music and film and everybody would be in Chelsea. And so I found myself by fate in the right place at the right time.

And when I walked down the King's Road to see what was going on, it was basically very gray, very tweed gray, very gray everything, except for this one store that was painted big outside, colors, colors, colors, and this music was blaring out of the store. And I believe it was, all you need is love, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. And that's all I heard. I was like a moth to the light. I was like, oh my God, what's there? And I just was boom right in there. And I became friends with the people in that place and they said, there's this great club we go to on Margaret Street, you have to come with us. I went to the club and it was a place where

all of these musicians that were just becoming were there. And it was everybody you could think of that was a British musician or group on the rise. And it started this beautiful adventure for four years. And then the reason I stopped the airline job is because my business started to really take off and the airlines saw I was getting press. I had a picture in time. So let's talk about it. So let's talk about it before we go there.

So you have this store and I think at this point, you basically roughly at this time, you're married to Eddie, right? And you open your first store, and you're starting to bring clothes from London. So talk to us a little bit about the early days, because I don't even know if you realize you're starting a business at that level. Like, it was just kind of like, let me bring things.

Yeah, it wasn't a conscious plan. I'm gonna do this. What I would do was one of the things you learned at the airlines was how to pack efficiently. And one of the things, one of the tricks is you take, let's say a dress, a little beep address and you fold it. And then you roll it really tight, and you put rubber bands around it.

So you have like a little frankfurter, but there's this dress in it. So I would roll all of these things, put rubber bands around them, get a garment bag and just fill the garment bag, this thick, and fill it up, and then walk through, walk through customs with my garment bag. And then I would bring them home and open them up, steam them

out and friends were all asking me for things. And then finally, I thought, I think I should see if I can find a place to sell these things because I know now how to get more of them. I have a relationship with all of these people in London. They're my friends and they were excited that I was doing this too. And so I found a store, $285. Thank you very much. Of course, it was a little basement store that you had to go down into.

But I was in a group of buildings that were all painted lots of colors now, because now we weren't more into this period where the painted colors on everything, not was just in that one store in London, but now it was everywhere. And it was very successful, it did really well. I decorated it with furniture from the Salvation Army.

I found snakeskin wallpaper, fabulous, at the Salvation Army. And I painted a pattern on the floor. I remember painting it while I was wearing high heels, of course. And I didn't have a dressing room. The way I had a dressing room is if the door was open, we had a dressing room because it made a spot behind it. If it was closed, we didn't. But nobody cared about taking their clothes off

at that point anyway. It wasn't a time for being a prude or shy. So it did really well. And then I started making some things because I had ideas that I didn't see anywhere that I thought would be really good. And those things started to get press. Coincidentally, there were some editors that happened to live on 53rd Street who would come down into my little basement hole and just really give me lots of press. I mean, I had two full pages, one in Vogue and one in Harper's Bazaar,

in the first six months that I was in business. I mean, which is unheard of. And so there was a picture of me and Eddie in Time Magazine wearing snake skin. And this buzzer went off at the airline. This is a big room where everybody's sitting with things on. And if you did something wrong on a call, a buzzer and a red light would go on and you'd have to go up to the front.

And so all of a sudden this buzzer and a red light is going and they call out my name. I thought, I'm doing a good job. What's the problem here? And so they had the magazine and they called me into this room and they said, what is this? And I said, oh, oh, that. And they said, we can't have this.

You can't be doing this. You have to make a choice. And I said, we can't have this, you can't be doing this, you have to make a choice. And I said, I understand and I fully respect your wishes, but I think I'm fully engaged in this and it would be hard for me to give it up. And so I had to leave. Was that scary, Norma? Because again, at this point, this was your safety net, right? They were paying the bill, they were paying the flights to London. It was $80, $80 a week, okay?

Of course it was a different time, but it was $80 a week. But the benefit was the travel. But at this point, I had already hired some people to help me make the clothes. We had already progressed to having a sample room. And so the truth is, it was time. It really was time. And I was not wanting to give up the travel, to be honest,

but I was working till two and three in the morning to do both jobs. So it was definitely a lot of hours. It was a lot of hours, but I am forever grateful to the experience, the Univac computer, the lessons I learned about service, computer, the lessons I learned about service, the teaching and the training at Airlines even today is extraordinary and then it was beyond extraordinary. I learned a lot about how to run an office which I never would have known. I learned

so much from that experience and most people people would say, well, if you're an artist, that's not what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna sit in an office. That four years was a school. That was another college for me of learning about business, learning about technology and learning about travel. Not only did I go to London, but I would go to Paris. There was a Trident plane.

The Tridents used to go up and then down. And you could go from London to Paris in a short time. So I would shop in Paris as well. And then I met people there and I would go to clubs in Paris and then go back to London and go back home. And then I traveled, I went to Iran, I went to Greece, I went all over Europe traveling. So it really was a very fruitful four years

and very well worth the time and my age and the experience. And that sounds like it because it sounds like also at the time that you were there, I mean, even now, like I think starting a business is extremely hard. I think it's not easy to find mentors and role models, et cetera. And I think in your time, it was even harder. So getting some of that client experience and how do you run a business and how do you run a operation, like I think it's just so valuable.

Hey, I'm pausing here for a second. I hope you're enjoying this amazing conversation as much as I do. Don't forget to subscribe and download. Now, if you're looking to leap your own career, figure out what's next for you, fast track your own growth, create a portfolio career. Check out my free 30 minute training at leapacademy.com slash training. That's leapacademy.com slash training. Now back to the show. And at some point, and I think it's roughly at the same time, like you're

starting to move to Madison to a bigger location. So clearly you're doing very well. Talk to us a little bit about that because also throughout this time, you and Eddie, I mean, you got married very early on, what, age 19. I would freak out at my kids. It was freaking, you know. But he was also your partner, which is not easy. So Eddie Kamali, actually Mohammed Hossein Kamali,

is Iranian and his spoken name was Mansour. He was a gorgeous, he was six feet one, a great dancer, a very sweet human being who grew up in boarding schools. very sweet human being who grew up in boarding schools. He was born to a family that was very close to the Shah. He was sent to boarding school at 11 years of age and on his own, basically, away from his family. He had three brothers and a sister. He was the youngest. He went to boarding school in England and then he came to the U.S. and was going to Columbia. And he was very Western because he'd spent more time outside of Iran than he actually did in Iran. I love to dance, which is why I keep mentioning clubs,

because at that point in my life, no matter what was going on, I was going out dancing. That was it. And I might add, I'd never taken, and I still have not taken a drug, I don't drink alcohol, and I would just dance and drink drug, I don't drink alcohol, and I would just dance and drink water

and be happier than anybody. So there was a friend of mine was the first DJ to ever play records in a club. And it was a small club and he invited me, he said, I'm gonna be playing records at this club and there's dancing and I said, records? Like records, really, you're gonna do that? And he said, yes, it's gonna be great.

So of course I went and there was dance contests were very popular then. So they were having a dance contest. And he said to me, I know you can win this dance contest. And I have a guy that you will dance with. And the two of you will win the dance contest. I said, cool. How much?

He said $500. I said, OK, let's do it. So he introduced me to Eddie, which is the name everybody used for Eddie Kamali. And we never danced together and we just started dancing. And then we were like, okay, we got this and we won. So this was now a reason for us to be together. And of course, get married.

And he was a student and trying to get through college. And of course, there was a lot of the disruption now is starting in Iran. And there are these two factions of Iranian students, some pro-Shah, some anti-Shah. So there was a lot of turmoil going on, but there was also a lot of drugs and a lot of partying and all of that. And what happened was our paths started going in different directions. And the more successful the business was, the less I wanted to go out and dance. Because I was sewing till three in the morning, and I much preferred to do that than to dance. I mean, I still love to dance, but you end up with different priorities. And he still wanted to dance and continued to do so. And we just really had different priorities.

And I believe strongly that my determination and the recognition, nobody knew me because he was in the store and I was always in the sample room. Nobody knew what I looked like. They didn't know anything about me really. I think what happened was he started to be more social, and I started to become more and more involved in designing and learning how to make patterns,

learning how to run a company. And I was just so thrilled by the fact that I could see who I was supposed to be and what that meant. But he was doing a lot of the sales too, right? Oh, he was great. He was great at sales. I was so insecure. I would think, oh my God, we're going to charge $200 for that. Meanwhile, I would hand whipstitch suede skirts that would take days. And I thought, I don't know, I think maybe $200 is too much. And then he would say, what are you talking about? $2,000.

And I'd say, oh my god, Eddie, how could you do that? And he'd say, because it's worth $2,000. And of course, he'd take the skirt into the store and sell it in about 20 minutes. And he was a very big advocate for what I was doing until I think he felt my independence might be a problem for him. And so he controlled the money, which is what men did at the time. Men controlled the money, men ran businesses, women didn't do that, right? And so I believed that

too. And then finally, I think because he'd been dating the sales girl, and I'd fired her several times, and he rehired her several times. And when she came in to tell me that she was going to start designing and she had some ideas of what she wanted to design. I said, oh, okay. And I packed up my things and I walked out and that was it. And so she, just like the guy with the tuna fish sandwich, is an important person in my success because both of them forced me to do something I never thought I would be able to do, no matter how difficult it was becoming with Eddie, no matter how I knew he was doing all of these things. I knew he was taking drugs. I knew he was spending all the money for fabric on these things. I couldn't imagine leaving my things.

I had $98 to my name. How could you leave with $98? And at that point we'd separated. I had an apartment. I had a mattress. I didn't even have curtains, I didn't have anything, but I had this feeling that something good was going to happen and I had no reason to believe that. I had zero reason and nobody knew me.

Nobody knew me at all. Exactly because you were always kind of the behind the scenes, the person that actually creates all the designs. And at this point, you're roughly age 35, am I correct? I was probably 30. We were married 19 to 29. That is a trauma. I still can't piece together why you don't have half of the business, but I think these

were different times. Oh, half of the business. Are you kidding? He kept changing. First of all, I never had half of the business. He always had more of it because he was the man. I can't explain to you, but that was the way it was. And I accepted it because that's the way it was.

It was the way women were trained to believe. And I was trained to believe that he could probably run the business better than I could. And I had no idea why, because I saw my mother handle money very well. But it was also a partnership, so I accepted the role I had. And I have to say that girl is so responsible for my freedom as a person, my awareness of my skills, skills I never thought I had. And I think there was a point later on where she tried to get in touch with me, she'd gone through AA, or I wasn't sure it was drugs or alcohol. And I think there's one of the steps is to ask for forgiveness. And she wanted to do that. And I told her she didn't have to, that she was an important factor in my success.

And I would always be grateful for the role she played, even though she misunderstood what I was talking about. That's incredible, Norma. So take a stare for a second, because then you're essentially starting from basically nothing. You don't have a name brand. You have $98, and eventually you become that designer

for pretty much all the known figures. Your bathing suit is in a museum. I'm wrapping my head around it. I mean, you're getting President George W. Bush to give you a prize and award. How did that even happen, Norma? So one of the things that is really important, I think, for people to know is the relationship was very abusive. I mean, he never touched me, but it was verbally abusive.

It was trying to make me fearful, and that abuse I would never talk about. My mother wasn't speaking to me because I got married so young. She didn't speak to me for a long time. She was very upset with me. And I didn't have anybody to confide in. And so I had to live with this secret about my life.

And so I didn't have a confident on it. I didn't have somebody to say, you shouldn't be doing this or try something else. So at that point, again, another one of these universe things, there was an editor. Who had been trying to make an appointment with me, a fashion editor to talk to me. She heard that I was the designer and nobody had ever wanted to speak with me. They spoke with Eddie. We had a date set where we were going to have lunch. And it was the day after I left the company and my face was swollen from crying. And I

thought, I don't know how to get in touch with this woman. I didn't have her telephone number. It was at work. So I just met her at the restaurant looking like I'd just gotten beaten up, and it was a mess. And she said, what happened to you? And I just told her everything.

And I felt so vulnerable, and I and i never ever tell anybody anything i mean it's just not what you did. And she said i'm gonna help you and so she started to help me find people to help me and And from that, I said, lesson learned is you have to talk to people in order for people to help you. And so I started to reach out and I was amazed at how many people wanted to help me. And they did. And so I borrowed money and I paid everybody back,

even when we didn't make that much money. I opened a store and we didn't make that much money. I would give them a little bit. I remember envelopes, money, sending people letters, thank you very much, Each week sending something. If I couldn't send something for the week, I would send a note saying, I apologize and I'm embarrassed that I can't send you something this week, but I would send the note.

And I remember when I paid everyone, that moment was extraordinary. It was, wow, I'm really free. And I'm actually making money and I can buy fabric and I can make these decisions myself. How long did that take, Norma? It actually didn't take that long because I got a tremendous amount of publicity going out on my own. If I was going to use the name Norma Kamali, I had to change it in some way. So I used O.M.O. Norma

Kamali on my own Norma Kamali. And there were so many articles and it was a time when women were seeking this freedom, this independence. And the letters I received from women across the country saying, what you've done inspired me, I'm going to do it too, I can do that. And I realized it was that moment in time where my story was very similar. And it was around the same time Cher and Sunny broke up and Cher was a customer of mine. And she, I have a telegram, I still have a telegram

from her congratulating me for leaving Eddie. And it was her experience too at that time. So I think wherever women saw that this could happen, that you could actually do something without a man being in control of it was very inspiring for women. And that's incredible. I'm literally getting chills here.

That is really, really inspiring. And I think people need to see others, especially women, do it on their own, but also ask for help and seeing how everybody is helping, right? Because otherwise you're staying stuck alone on the journey and it's just so hard. You mentioned Cher, and I think you also had Bette Midler really early on, right?

And suddenly you become this person. Why do you think the stars suddenly got so drawn to Norma Kamali? It actually started the first week we were in business in the basement. I have no real idea why. It was famous men and women, and at the time they didn't have stylists shopping for them. Everybody shopped for themselves. And so I got to meet a lot of these people who were looking to create

their own style. Don't forget the 70s, nobody was styling Jimi Hendrix. Nobody was styling Cher other than her costumes for her show. She was styling herself, Bianca Jagger styling herself. Everybody was. And I had these great customers. I mean, I remember making every color feather jacket you could imagine for Sly from Sly and the Family Stone, if anybody remembers who he

is, and making clothes for all of these great people who were famous and doing great things. And I've never given free clothes to anybody to wear my clothes. And so if people want them, they're obviously buying them and paying for them. So I have no real understanding of why that is and why it still continues. But I'm very complimented by it. But I'm also complimented by seeing social media, by the way, offers a great opportunity for designers. For me, we have a hashtag, NKMyWay, and my customers around the world are

the coolest women who style themselves in the most amazing ways. They take amazing photographs, that they're in countries that you would never expect, or they're traveling to countries, and we are in awe of what we see. And that is the biggest compliment of all. And so, I love that celebrities of the time, of the moment, are wearing my clothes.

And it keeps going generationally. Sabrina Carpenter is wearing my clothes. It's an interesting phenomena, right? Gratkell Welsh. I did every Outfit she ever wore to the Oscars or any of those working with her one on one with this body that's the most spectacular body this gorgeous human being who focused on her body, her face, herself, and so what was designed.

We worked together on them. So if you have somebody like that and then people today, it's an amazing phenomena to me that that happens, but I have nothing to do with it. I'm not giving clothes away. I'm not paying people to come to support me. It's really a beautiful thank you that I appreciate more than anything. It's probably also the connections that you built because I think you build a lot of trust and a lot of connections with some of these people.

So they become an advocate and they relate to the brand. One of the things that popped for me though, you at that point, you didn't really know how to sell, right? And you're starting on your own and you're expected to know how to sell. What made the transition? How did you learn? Well, don't forget the airlines I was selling for four years. I was selling tours to the

Orient, round the world trips, where I would learn if you liked oranges, I would find out everything you liked. So every time you were at a new hotel room, there would be oranges there. So I learned from the airlines. And I don't know if it's Lebanese people are born with the selling gene, but I'm Lebanese and I think we just do it because that's somewhere it's streaming in our blood. And you need to bargain anyway, right? Everywhere you go, you need to bargain.

Negotiate. You need to bargain anyway, right? Everywhere you go, you need to bargain. Negotiate, negotiate. Negotiate. Right, but also the idea of selling wholesale is very different from retail. So I remember we had the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine and it was Christie Brinkley on the cover

and Francesca Scavullo took the picture and Cosmo was the magazine du jour for this girl, this feminine kind of power that was happening. Helen Gurley Brown was writing all these provocative articles about masturbation and everything else. And the cover was the cover to get more than Vogue, more than anything. And here I have the cover of Cosmo on Christie Brinkley, who nobody knew, and this gorgeous girl shows up out of nowhere wearing one of my swimsuits and at the time swimwear Was more of a two-piece

conversation from the waist down some suits were lower rise, but mostly more covered and many prints Not so much solid suits. And I made this bikini that had two triangles, a small bottom with strings that would wrap around your body. And it just pushed me into the wholesale world. And in order to produce the amount of swimsuits

we needed to produce, it was bigger numbers. So we decided to try to sell them wholesale. So we got a model and we invited buyers up. And I remember when Bloomingdale's came up, I had the swimsuit and nobody had seen swimsuits like this before. And I had a group of swimsuits and I was showing some of the swimsuits over jeans. And they came up, they sat down, they didn't take off their coats and they're looking at this model

that I have modeling the suits and they just get up and walk out. And I thought, oh, this wholesale thing is really different. They don't say goodbye. They don't take their coats off. They don't, I just thought this was the way it was done. I didn't realize that they were like horrified by what they saw and they just like walked out.

I remember years later, I was in a license negotiation and the buyer, our buyer from that group was at the meeting. It was a big table of people and she was part of the team that was trying to get me to sign a license with this company. I'm looking at her and she said, ''Oh, hi. Do you remember me?'' I said, ''Yeah, I do.'' I thought? And I said, Yeah, I do. And I thought, Oh, I can't resist this. I cannot resist this. But

I have to tell the story. So I said, Oh, my god, I do remember. And I told the story and she was turning every color purple. And I said, and I'm fine with that, and I probably will sign this license, but I'm sorry, I had to give back a little. I had to give back a little love. But I was so naive, I had no idea. I didn't even realize that that was,

I just thought, oh, that must be the way it is. I just didn't know. Oh, my God, what an incredible story. And again, you were really bold with the things that you've done. You've done sleeping bags. And I mean, you've done all these things that are just pushing everybody's thoughts

to a next level. How were you not afraid? Let's just say I spent many nights crying myself to sleep thinking I'm gonna have to close tomorrow because I'm not going to be able to pay the rent. I'm gonna have to find something else to do or it's over. And now the problems are so much bigger and more of a drama than they were then and they're still they still keep me up and they still keep me on my toes. When you're crying yourself to sleep. One of the things I learned and my partner thinks is one of my best assets is no matter how shitty it is when I go to sleep, I don't know why this is, but I wake up every morning in a good mood like, today I'm going to fix it.

That was shitty yesterday, I'm fixing it today. And I think you can actually do that. And it's worked for me enough that I still really feel this is another day, this is another chance to fix it or do something better. So being afraid is real, but also trying to mitigate the seriousness of what's frightening you is more important. And so survival skills are key, really key.

And to me, that's so inspiring. And I think a lot of our audience will really resonate. They are in a transition in their life, many of them, and they're trying to figure out what's next, how do I get faster, better? So this is really, really important. And I believe you keep on reinventing yourself also through COVID and also through other things, right?

Like you continuously change, transition, do more, right, bigger. So maybe a little bit about what that looks like for you before we wrap up. I think the way you grow is to do something you never did before. So to the dismay of everybody that works here, I'm constantly doing something nobody's done before.

And I think after a few of those, they kind of get used to it and go along for the ride and really learn more about themselves too. That doing new things really expands your brain. There's real data to show that. And I think it also gives you a sense of your own power and your own abilities. And I think that that's really the key.

If you stay curious, for me, it's reinvention or innovation, but everybody has a different desire and goal, but doing something new as often as possible is, I think, the secret to really seeing what your potential is. What's next for Norma? Because you keep on changing, how do you see yourself continue to grow? There are so many things I want to do and I'm trying to do at the same time, which is tricky. I'm enamored with AI, truly enamored.

I think it's the future. It's everything in the future. The more I learn about it, the more I realize I want to try to tell everybody I know, just try to get into this now, because you'll be very alone if you don't and try to adapt quickly to what it can offer. Being afraid of it is real, but if you're afraid of it and you don't know about it, then you really have fears. Besides AI, know about it, then you really have fears. Besides AI, I have a lot of interest in education and in other things that I do that maybe are not in the fashion industry, not in the fashion world. I think the luxury of living a long, healthy life is something I really focus on so that now and tomorrow, now, right now, I think is the most exciting time in my life.

Not my personal life, but in what's going on in the world, the possibilities. I think disruption is a mandate. Disruption in the fashion industry will make it better. Disruption in every part of our lives will make it better, because what exists has reached the end of the road, and we need to change things. So it's a very exciting time. So I'd like to live a long life so I can experience all of this excitement and be a part of it.

Norma, I love this. And again, like in education for Leap Academy, I see millions of people or tens of millions, hundreds of millions that will need to reinvent themselves. So for me, that's a big calling. What would you say to your audience and to your younger self that is trying to figure out what's next and how to really make the most out of life?

You know, I'm going to refer back to Twyla again, because we both agreed that our failures were so important in our development, and the failures that involve humiliation even more so. And so many people want to be perfect and don't want to make a mistake and don't want to look human or whatever. But those mistakes, while they're embarrassing and humiliating, if you take action immediately to course correct or to find another route or a solution or maybe just a U-turn and go somewhere else. That's really the key. And also, really taking a look at when something horrible

is happening in your life, whether it's a person situation, and think the universe is here, so I don't continue down this road, that I try something else, or I make an adjustment in myself, or I take a look at myself in the mirror and understand what's happening. Those are really important. They're more important than the good things.

The good things only mean one thing. Good, then not so good happens, right? You can't stay on a plateau of good forever. So every time something great happens here, I say, don't get excited, because this is when I get nervous. When everything is too good, it's gonna get bad, or it's gonna be not so good.

So you have to then figure out a way not to make it a nose dive, but to kind of just a little valley till you get to somewhere else you're supposed to be. So it's tricky to deal with these embarrassments and humiliations, but you can't succeed. You can't do anything without having them as part of your life experience. That is such an important sentence. Seriously, Norma, I want to thank you so much, first of all, for this episode,

but also for just, I think you are a pioneer. I think you are a role model to a lot of women that needs to see this, bring the fashion, starting a business, growing a business for so many decades. Thank you for everything you do. Well, thank you very much. This was great. I think this is a fantastic service you're doing for people.

It was a good idea. I read your bio. You have a good history yourself and that's great that you're using it to help other people. That's really commendable. Thank you. Thank you, Norma. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

If you did, please leave a 5 star review below. This really helps us continue to bring amazing guests. Also, if you're feeling stuck or simply want more from your own career, watch this 30 minute free training at leapacademy.com slash training. That's leapacademy.com slash training. Now I will see you in the next episode of the Leap Academy with Zilana Golancho.