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“One of the greatest to ever do it,” read Chloë Sevigny’s Instagram story just a few days ago. The photo featured a young Norma Kamali, one of the great New York designers, wearing one of her famous high fashion sweatshirts, this time in the form of a jumpsuit with padded shoulders, pants tucked into socks tucked into heels, a little grey felt bowler atop her head. “Thank you @kamaliclub,” Sevigny’s caption continues.
Sevigny was lauding a fledgling account dedicated to the work and larger-than-life personality of Kamali. “I was kind of shocked that no one had done it yet,” says the man behind the account, Juno de la Cruz. (Nostalgia-fueled sourced-image accounts like @oldprada and @gallianoarchive have become de rigueur for fans of many established designers.) “I couldn’t find a single Instagram account dedicated to Norma Kamali.” He only started the account one week ago, has already received the endorsement of Sevigny, and is followed by industry insiders like Timothée Chalamet’s stylist Taylor McNeill and makeup artist Romy Soleimani. According to de la Cruz, the credit all goes to Kamali.
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“She has that boldness that doesn’t ask for permission,” he reflects. “It’s hot and smart and glamorous, but grounded in innovation.” Before there was athleisure, there was Norma Kamali’s creative design rooted in livable fabrics like stretch jersey and fleece. She designed costumes for Studio 54 and made clothes for its attendees. She draped like French couturier Madame Grès—as evidenced in the viral blue dress Carrie Bradshaw wore in Season one of And Just Like That. And she was one of the first to turn sweatshirts into fashion, add a heel to a sneaker, and merge the sleeping bag and the puffer coat. “Her stuff is very practical. It’s wrinkle free. It’s washable. So, it’s very empowering to wear.” De la Cruz found the lack of documentation “wild, considering how influential she was.”
De la Cruz owns a vintage store, Open 24 Hours, which specializes in hard-to-find pieces. “I actually came to Kamali kind of late,” he admits. The first piece of hers he found was a Victorian lace collar, now documented beneath a leather vest in a snap on @kamaliclub. “Funnily enough, that ended up being the first piece that I sold to Chloe, which felt kind of poetic because she’s an O-OG. She’s been wearing Norma since way, way back.”
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De La Cruz’s account features a photo of Sevigny in a Norma Kamali cotton jumpsuit at a fashion show from 2003. Another image documents the designer’s new era sweats. There’s one of André Leon Talley in her iconic sleeping bag coat, this time in a striking red. The first post ever posted is one of Kamali herself in her own tiered ruffle skirt and a sequined, puff-sleeved top. In fact, Kamali and her signature bangs, a hairstyle she wears to this day, frequent the page. She is her own best brand ambassador.
“I feel like she is still under the radar,” says De la Cruz, though he sees her influence among emerging designers like Nicklas Skovgaard and Fidan Novruzova. Despite critical renown—she won the CFDA’s Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016—and an IYKYK industry following, most of her clothes still sell for pretty cheap on resale sites (though it’s worth noting her price points have always hovered below many ultra luxury designers). This past year, the RealReal partnered with Kamali to sell pieces from her personal archive with most items priced somewhere in the low hundreds, despite their historical esteem.
However, just a few days ago de la Cruz posted a photo of a vintage 1982 Norma Kamali khaki shirt with a funnel-neck collar, Edwardian sleeves, and a pleated peplum on his Open 24 Hours account. “I had 20 or more people asking about it,” outstripping the response he gets for Vivienne Westwood corsets and the Comme des Garçons “lumps and bumps” collection. “That’s the most liked photo that I have ever had.”
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