Vogue
Norma Kamali Fall 2022 Ready-To-Wear
By Laird Borrelli-Persson
Norma Kamali has an optimistic and realistic way of looking at the world and at fashion that has given a longevity to her clothes that many designers would envy. Take the shirred Diana dress: Designed in the 1970s, it was worn by Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw on And Just Like That… and is selling like hotcakes. As with everything Kamali designs, this sexy dress can be thrown in the washing machine, and since it stretches, it adapts to many body types.
Through her use of bias cutting and drawstrings, and translation of swimwear aspects like cutouts into ready-to-wear, Kamali has always made clothes that could be described as user-friendly, which means something different in 2022 than it did even 10 years ago. “A lot of the way we shop is through photos on a screen, and the way the light comes through the photos and how eye-catching the photos are, how appealing emotionally that experience is, is really a very modern thought process that many of us didn’t have to think about before,” said Kamali. “So if I have a dark color or something subtle, I have to do something so it pops off the screen.”
