Norma Kamali’s customer base has grown and broadened over the years and her collections are meant to address her clients in all their variety. Conscious of value, the designer said she relishes working in the contemporary market. “We try to do the best quality possible and we focus on it as if it’s a designer collection,” Kamali said on a walk-through of a season that offered not only a wide range of options, but styling suggestions for how you can use things you might already have in your closet, by adding a glove, say, or wrapping a belt around your wrist like a bracelet. For fall, Kamali said, “I really think it’s the way you accessorize it that makes [a look] in place of trend. It makes it the fun thing. It keeps the reason why we love fashion present.”
There were more than accessories to love. The animal print coat has been an editor’s favorite this week, and Kamali hopes to continue that trend with her blown-up versions of the print. If an oversized leopard spot hooded coat is the definition of snuggly, a shaggy ivory material was even more wild. The designer revisited the reflective fabric she used recently and added quilting to the black to white ombre from pre-fall. Her reissued terry pieces continue to sell well. Customers’ appetite for lace-trimmed slip dresses is undiminished and there were many to choose from here. Pops of red and the use of (mixed) stripes were unexpected.
The collection’s most distinctive feature, winged sleeves, was an archive find. Kamali updated a 1977 one-piece with an open back by making the neck bow larger (look 33) and then she applied the dramatic construction treatment to all kinds of garments from a witchy black dress to a top and even a hip-defining pair of slim pants. These pieces seem destined to fly out of stores.
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