Speaker 1: I'm forever grateful that, no matter how stressful it was,
Speaker 1: that I hung in and we managed to to to
Speaker 1: get out the other end. It's not Sometimes it's bloody
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's not so pretty. It was blood. There
Speaker 1: was blood. My name is Jeffers Zick Carrien, and you're
Speaker 1: listening to four Courses with Jeffers Zi Carrion from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. And four Courses I'll be taking you along
Speaker 1: for the ride while I talk with the top talent
Speaker 1: of our time. In each conversation, I focus on four
Speaker 1: different areas from my guest life and career, and during
Speaker 1: those four courses, I'm gonna dig deep and uncover new
Speaker 1: insights and inspirations that we can all use to fuel
Speaker 1: ourselves to push forward. My guest on this episode hung
Speaker 1: out with Jimmy Hendrix and led Zeppelin in the sixties.
Speaker 1: She's remained culturally innovative and relevant for more than fifty years,
Speaker 1: and she even designed a bathing suit so famous that
Speaker 1: it sits in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Speaker 1: Please enjoy my delightful conversation with my dear friend, fashion
Speaker 1: designer Norma Comali. We shared a wall for a long
Speaker 1: ten years Yes, I opened a restaurant called Town and
Speaker 1: it was right next to your store. I know you
Speaker 1: weren't so happy with that construction, crazy with the construction.
Speaker 1: I came after you and then we became really good friends. Yes,
Speaker 1: you came after me. I was like, for my first course,
Speaker 1: I had to talk with Norma about the Evan flow
Speaker 1: of culture and how it has inspired her most iconic creations.
Speaker 1: Today in Norman is selling highly stylish and relevant designs
Speaker 1: to women several decades her jr. But what most of
Speaker 1: those women don't know is that the clothes they're wearing
Speaker 1: are designed by someone who participated in the cultural revolution
Speaker 1: of the sixties. Basically, you grew up in Opper East
Speaker 1: Side in a very small apartment, eating the best food, juicing,
Speaker 1: going just doing what you wanted to do and being
Speaker 1: extremely fashionable, and then you landed in the sixties in London.
Speaker 1: Can you give me just a little background about why
Speaker 1: he went to London. I went on a job interview
Speaker 1: after f I t with my portfolio and this guy
Speaker 1: who was interviewing me for the job was eating a
Speaker 1: tuna sandwich with his feet up on his desk and
Speaker 1: he said, young lady, put your portfolio down, come here
Speaker 1: and turn around for me. And all I can think
Speaker 1: of is, my mother wants me to get a job.
Speaker 1: I better turn around. He has the power in the room.
Speaker 1: I did. I was so humiliated that I did. I
Speaker 1: ran out with my portfolio. I got home and I said, mom,
Speaker 1: I didn't get the job. At the time, if you
Speaker 1: looked in the New York Times, you could find a job.
Speaker 1: So there was a job at Northwest Orian Airlines in reservation.
Speaker 1: So at one pen Plaza, I sat at a UNIVAC computer.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to type. I still don't, And
Speaker 1: every Thursday after work I would get on a flight
Speaker 1: and come back Monday morning for four years to London
Speaker 1: round trip twenty nine dollars a trip, every every week.
Speaker 1: Every week. We're talking nine sixty four, sixty five, sixties six,
Speaker 1: sixty seven. So my first so, so listen to this.
Speaker 1: I meet a friend of mine from f I T
Speaker 1: I meet her in Paris and then we were going
Speaker 1: to go to London. So I'm waiting for her in
Speaker 1: the lobby of a hotel. I was sitting there and
Speaker 1: there were these British guys, obviously of some rock group,
Speaker 1: and they thought I was French and they were talking
Speaker 1: about me, and I was trying not to show any expression.
Speaker 1: My friend Betsy comes in and we started screaming and yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they said, oh, you're Americans. And so the name
Speaker 1: of the band was the Spencer Davis Group. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know who they are, but you know
Speaker 1: the song I'm a Man, Yes, I him and that's
Speaker 1: and so we went all around Paris that night. They
Speaker 1: were doing airplane hangar concerts and they said, when you
Speaker 1: go to London, meet us at this club. We'll get
Speaker 1: you into this club called the Speakeasy on Margaret Street. Well,
Speaker 1: the Speakeasy on Margaret Street all musicians, all musicians, and
Speaker 1: I was there every weekend. I met Jimmy Hendrix, I
Speaker 1: met everybody. I met everybody. And my friend's husband was
Speaker 1: working for the manager of led Zeppelin, Jeff Beck was
Speaker 1: really good friends. So I was, I was in this place,
Speaker 1: and I would come back to New York and and
Speaker 1: then buying these mini skirts and everybody's knees in New
Speaker 1: York were covered. Nobody if you wore a skirt above
Speaker 1: your knees, you were prostitute. I came back from London,
Speaker 1: my skirt. It was like halfway up my thigh and
Speaker 1: cars were stopping. People were just saying horrific things to me.
Speaker 1: But I didn't care because I knew. And so I
Speaker 1: really got inspired to be in fashion from London, not
Speaker 1: from learning about fashion, And so those four years were
Speaker 1: so special. It was a real revolution. Everything was new
Speaker 1: and London was spectacular. And that memory of thinking that
Speaker 1: you can do things that you never saw before, because
Speaker 1: that's how great it is. That memory is so alive
Speaker 1: in my head, and I'm so happy that I had
Speaker 1: that experience to be there at that time. When did
Speaker 1: you stop going to London every weekend? Well? I stopped
Speaker 1: because my business grew so much that I couldn't go anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a real business at that point.
Speaker 1: I was designing the clothes. Where were you making them? Normal?
Speaker 1: I had my own factory. I started with a sample
Speaker 1: room and then I opened a bigger space, and I
Speaker 1: hired all the sewers and cutters. And in fact, a
Speaker 1: woman that works for me now worked for me. Then
Speaker 1: she's still with me. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. We
Speaker 1: have seen so much together. You know, you used to
Speaker 1: sew a lot, right, You're you're a sewer, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of designers. Well, I say some are, but
Speaker 1: there are people that aren't sewers of other So but
Speaker 1: you so my forte is pattern making and I what
Speaker 1: is that? Tell us what that is? It sounds like obvious.
Speaker 1: But so I opened this business, and you were right.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a painter, but there I like
Speaker 1: my mother said, you know, you got to pay the
Speaker 1: rent because I'm going to throw you out. So I
Speaker 1: ended up getting a scholarship to f I T And
Speaker 1: when I graduated, I said, I really hate this fashion stuff.
Speaker 1: And I got a job at an airline in the office,
Speaker 1: brought back clothes, opened up a little shop and sold them.
Speaker 1: And then I decided I had some ideas of my
Speaker 1: own and I started to make them myself. And then
Speaker 1: I hired a pattern maker. And the pattern maker makes
Speaker 1: the pattern for what the garment is going to look
Speaker 1: like and when it gets owned together, and the powdern
Speaker 1: maker kept telling me what you want isn't possible, and
Speaker 1: I was like, no, it's possible. I know it has
Speaker 1: to be possible. So I learned how to make patterns
Speaker 1: on my own, literally, and I actually am quite good
Speaker 1: at it, and I love it. And if I were
Speaker 1: in a competition and for best swimwear a pattern maker
Speaker 1: in the world, I would feel very good about being
Speaker 1: in that competition. The thing is, it becomes your power
Speaker 1: when when you can do anything you want to do.
Speaker 1: I can make a pattern of anything in the world
Speaker 1: my mind can think of, and that what happens to
Speaker 1: that pattern. So you make the pattern and then you
Speaker 1: give it to a person to cut it. It gets
Speaker 1: cut into fabric specific fabric, and then it gets own
Speaker 1: and then we have a fitting, and there may be
Speaker 1: things that want to make smaller, bigger, longer, shorter. We
Speaker 1: do a little tweaking on it. I must say, I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of the patterns that don't need any of that.
Speaker 1: And then we approve it and then it goes into
Speaker 1: production and we sell them to different accounts like Netta,
Speaker 1: Porter and Revolve, and then I see it on Pete
Speaker 1: Bowl and that's that's the best. I mean. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite favorite all time sightings was the very first
Speaker 1: skirt I ever made was leather and it was all whipstitched,
Speaker 1: you know, when you take the leather and circle the
Speaker 1: seams with the leather strips. That was the first skirt
Speaker 1: I ever made, and I sold it and I never
Speaker 1: expected to see it again. So fifteen years ago, I
Speaker 1: am walking down the street. It's a summary morning, the
Speaker 1: sun is shining, and I see this girl who's maybe eighteen.
Speaker 1: She's wearing this amazing skirt and it's moving so nicely,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh my god, that skirt is really beautiful.
Speaker 1: And as she's walking by me, my heart was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's my skirt. I know that's my skirt.
Speaker 1: I like, there was no question after her. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't say anything. I was so overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by it. And what I loved was that I knew,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't that long ago. I knew that that
Speaker 1: skirt was handed down by her grandmother or mother, or
Speaker 1: she bought it in a vintage store, and it might
Speaker 1: have had another life with somebody else, which is even better.
Speaker 1: So the joy of knowing that you know this thing
Speaker 1: lives on. You have always seen something that is different
Speaker 1: and fashion for yourself. I remember the gowns that you
Speaker 1: did for the girls at our restaurant. Town. We dressed
Speaker 1: every girl in the exact same gown, but it had
Speaker 1: like five different looks, and the girls loved it, and
Speaker 1: they loved it because you gave them options, which I
Speaker 1: find really important. So where did that come from? Why
Speaker 1: did you decide to sort of like think about things differently.
Speaker 1: That particular dress is called the all in One Dress.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy three, I was wearing tons of
Speaker 1: vintage clothing, including my clothes, and I sold vintage too,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I want to design vintage of the future,
Speaker 1: and so I got this jersey knit fabric, which was
Speaker 1: really very ahead of its time. It just wasn't as
Speaker 1: developed those fabrications. And I made probably twelve dresses. Out
Speaker 1: of those twelve dresses, seven are still on my collection
Speaker 1: and that one is one of those seven and was
Speaker 1: one of the twelve piece collection. The girls at wore
Speaker 1: that would tell me, I just love wearing this, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. No one's ever let us wear clothes
Speaker 1: so that make me feel sexy, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you're you're welcome, I mean, And and it was washable.
Speaker 1: I remember they were saying, oh, thanks because we don't
Speaker 1: have to dry clean it and we can just wash
Speaker 1: it and it's so easy. And that's really I mean
Speaker 1: for me. I don't do clothes that you dry clean anymore,
Speaker 1: because especially if you're on a budget. I come home
Speaker 1: and I just put my clothes in the washing machine.
Speaker 1: There's something about the sound of the washing machine that
Speaker 1: calms me at night. As I'm walking through the house,
Speaker 1: I'm taking my clothes off in the washer, and then
Speaker 1: I hear and I feel so good. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I noticed was you came up with a
Speaker 1: sleeping bag coat. And I love your names of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like so like, no bullshit. It's like, we call
Speaker 1: it the sleeping bag, we call it the parachute co
Speaker 1: we call it all in one dress. So how did
Speaker 1: they come about? And like, I still see him on
Speaker 1: the streets today, Like, and they're so practical for New
Speaker 1: York that period, it was really really innovative and creative.
Speaker 1: And I think that time and the influence of that
Speaker 1: time still exists today. The creative concept of it that
Speaker 1: you can think out of the box, you can do
Speaker 1: things in a different way, and you can still be
Speaker 1: classic at the same time, so that that style can
Speaker 1: have a long life. And like the sleeping bag coat,
Speaker 1: if you have a style that serves a function. I
Speaker 1: never thought of the sleeping bag coat as fashion. It
Speaker 1: was my sleeping bag. I was camping, I had to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom. I took my sleeping bag over
Speaker 1: me and I walked into the woods. And I as
Speaker 1: I was walking with my coat of my sleeping bag
Speaker 1: around me, I thought, when I go home, I have
Speaker 1: to make a coat out of this, and I did.
Speaker 1: I took my sleeping bag and I cut it into
Speaker 1: a coat and I sewed it up. And that pattern
Speaker 1: is the very same pattern I still use today, and
Speaker 1: I don't. I didn't waste one piece of the sleeping bag,
Speaker 1: which makes it sustainable. It is based on the NASA
Speaker 1: theory for warmth, where you have two coats with a
Speaker 1: pocket in between, and the heat from your body exchanges
Speaker 1: with the cold from outside, and that's how you stay warm.
Speaker 1: And that coat just keeps living on. I've never stopped
Speaker 1: making the sleeping bag. Commerce now in commerce, then commerce
Speaker 1: now is in the fashion is so copied and such.
Speaker 1: There's so many people that rip you off so quickly.
Speaker 1: Do you have to copyright these patterns? And how do
Speaker 1: you get paid if someone's ripping you off? Well, you
Speaker 1: can't copyright a pattern. Somebody can copy and just change
Speaker 1: a little thing I mean, I've gotten copied my entire career,
Speaker 1: and you know what, I know I have another idea.
Speaker 1: So I don't feel like, oh my god, that's the
Speaker 1: end of my life. That person copy my sleeping bag coat.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many iterations of the sleeping
Speaker 1: bag coat, and you know what, it just makes me
Speaker 1: look good because it means it's a good idea that
Speaker 1: just will not go away, and I just keep selling
Speaker 1: more of them as a result. So I think that
Speaker 1: that part of it I reconciled. And then there's this
Speaker 1: new designer who started in and somebody brought to my attention.
Speaker 1: She has a website and she has one dress as
Speaker 1: her total business and it's my all in one dress.
Speaker 1: She does the same video of how to use it,
Speaker 1: and she says she's the designer and the creator of it.
Speaker 1: And I think to myself, what is she thinking to
Speaker 1: like not want to be creative and why doesn't she
Speaker 1: want to express herself? But you think more about the
Speaker 1: reasoning of why, you know, why why would you do that?
Speaker 1: Why why not have the joy of your own discovery?
Speaker 1: So I think there are people who create and there
Speaker 1: are people who copy, and that's the world for the
Speaker 1: second course, I had to ask normal more about how
Speaker 1: she remains relevant and authentic. How does she stay aware
Speaker 1: of modern trends while creating classic work over and over again.
Speaker 1: I know what you do is about staying relevant, and
Speaker 1: you've stayed relevant, for my god, since years. It's incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I think a lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with authenticity and your eyes are wide open.
Speaker 1: You definitely acted as if you wanted to break rules
Speaker 1: right away and do it your way, but remain authentic,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's something that people pick up on.
Speaker 1: I mean, really staying where you stayed relevant by like
Speaker 1: not listening to anyone basically, Yeah, that's the I I
Speaker 1: think that's the key, especially with fashion, because there's the
Speaker 1: flavor of the month and there's the trend that everybody
Speaker 1: thinks is the hottest thing. But what ends up happening
Speaker 1: is everybody jumps on the same bandwagon and everything looks
Speaker 1: the same. But if you for me, I was always
Speaker 1: determined to live a creative life, and in order to
Speaker 1: do that, you have to try to be independent as
Speaker 1: much as you can and be the final word on
Speaker 1: on how you make decisions and what you do. And
Speaker 1: that probably was the most challenging for me. But with
Speaker 1: out it, I definitely would not have enjoyed what doing
Speaker 1: what I do, which I still love, and you do
Speaker 1: that too. We are doing what we want to do.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean it's a stress free life and everything
Speaker 1: is wonderful everybody, but but you put up with the
Speaker 1: stress because you know it's your thing, it's your it's
Speaker 1: how you express yourself, it's your creative life, and we're
Speaker 1: so fortunate to have that. I mean, think about it,
Speaker 1: but this is a blessing to be able to do
Speaker 1: what you love. So I'm forever grateful that, no matter
Speaker 1: how stressful it was, that I hung in and we
Speaker 1: managed to to get out the other end. It's not
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's bloody and sometimes it's not so pretty. It
Speaker 1: was blood you know. I love fashion, right, I mean
Speaker 1: a fashion not now. I'm not a fashionista. I just
Speaker 1: love clothes. I love style. But I think that I
Speaker 1: tell people that food and I know this about style.
Speaker 1: Every twenty years or so, you go back and you
Speaker 1: pick out one thing that the twenty year olds haven't
Speaker 1: seen yet, and you bring it back and you make
Speaker 1: it more alive. You tweak it just a bit, but
Speaker 1: it's still classical and that's what I do. There's nothing
Speaker 1: I do that's not classical. But I look at it like,
Speaker 1: that's why Town was successful. I took classics and just
Speaker 1: like put my spin on it. But that's why I
Speaker 1: love fashion so much, because it's very much mimics food
Speaker 1: for me, and you you just gotta pay attention and you'll
Speaker 1: stay relevant when you're in fashion or music, film, food.
Speaker 1: It's so much reflects the time, and it's really very
Speaker 1: important to be aware of what's going on at the time.
Speaker 1: But it's also what happens is you become better at
Speaker 1: what you do, you create new classics because you know
Speaker 1: what can survive and what will be timeless. What happens
Speaker 1: is when you're younger, the tendency is to be more
Speaker 1: trend driven, and I think that's a way to start,
Speaker 1: but then you find that where you're learning about the
Speaker 1: classic and the classics really hold up and classic. You know,
Speaker 1: a strapless gown is classic. A classic doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a three piece suit. It a classic can be
Speaker 1: a number of things. My big joy is to see
Speaker 1: people who are in their twenties now. In fact, the
Speaker 1: biggest demographic I have is the thirty five to forty
Speaker 1: five year old, and the second demographic is the forty
Speaker 1: five to fifty five, which ties with the twenty need
Speaker 1: to do. So it's like they're all and many of
Speaker 1: them I don't know anything about Norm McNally and what
Speaker 1: I've done in the past. They have no reference and
Speaker 1: why should they. So I think it's great that they
Speaker 1: see me and think of me in a completely different way,
Speaker 1: in a way that relates to today, which is great.
Speaker 1: And again, you have to be classic, but you have
Speaker 1: to really be aware of what's going on now. If
Speaker 1: you take Covid for example, when Covid started, when we
Speaker 1: were in lockdown in March, our business was down sev
Speaker 1: there was absolutely nothing going on, and luckily a huge
Speaker 1: portion of my business is e commerce. So what I
Speaker 1: learned was we're going to be indoors, We're gonna be casual.
Speaker 1: We're not I don't I don't think I had shoes
Speaker 1: on for like six months. And so if you're home,
Speaker 1: you want clothes that you could just throw in the
Speaker 1: washing machine, that you feel super comfortable in. And so
Speaker 1: we just went crazy making a bunch of things that
Speaker 1: were really comfortable and very affordable because you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people weren't sure if they would have a job,
Speaker 1: and without paying attention to that, and without being mostly
Speaker 1: on e commerce, which means you have to be relevant
Speaker 1: to what's going on in the time. So twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: actually more than twelve years ago, I realized I have
Speaker 1: to get out of the department stores. I have to
Speaker 1: be on e commerce. And I'm so glad I did that.
Speaker 1: So for you too, it's it's what people want to eat,
Speaker 1: I mean, what they're thinking about, how they want to live,
Speaker 1: how they're going to prepare food at home. Now what
Speaker 1: are you telling people? How how do you support people
Speaker 1: who are all of a sudden cooking more at home
Speaker 1: than they ever did before. For our third course, Norma
Speaker 1: told me all about her history with wellness, which began
Speaker 1: as more of a family annoyance than a personal passion.
Speaker 1: Is your mother creative like yourself? My mother was incredibly creative.
Speaker 1: She could do anything. She painted, she's so she cooked.
Speaker 1: If we went to a restaurant and she liked whatever
Speaker 1: it was that she had, she would figure out what
Speaker 1: the ingredients for to make it. She was very, very
Speaker 1: creative in every way. We've lived in an apartment that
Speaker 1: was about nine by five. It was the smallest apartment
Speaker 1: in New York and my bedroom was this little room
Speaker 1: off the kitchen. And she had a juice or you
Speaker 1: know those big juice that looked like a car engine.
Speaker 1: She had that in the on the counter right next
Speaker 1: to my bedroom. And she would start with those carrots
Speaker 1: at six o'clock in the morning and it was like
Speaker 1: the whole apartment would shake. And so she was using
Speaker 1: really early. She was into herbs. She had a garden.
Speaker 1: You know, this is New York City we're about. We're
Speaker 1: about the New York a section of New York called
Speaker 1: Yorkville and Upper East sided in the eighties, and it's
Speaker 1: actually seventy seven Street between York and Cherokee Place where
Speaker 1: John J. Park is. I had a lot of beer,
Speaker 1: a lot of beer housing in in all that schnitzel,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I had. It was an Irish neighborhood and
Speaker 1: then on one end of it was German on the
Speaker 1: other side, Hungarian and Czechoslovakian on the other end. So
Speaker 1: it was, you know, New York. It was great growing
Speaker 1: up in New York at the time. Where did you
Speaker 1: grow up, Jeffrey. I grew up in Worcestern, Massachusetts. It
Speaker 1: was a mixed name, but it was tons of Portuguese,
Speaker 1: in Irish Catholic, and we're ar means I think we're
Speaker 1: the only Armyans in the middle of that. Well we
Speaker 1: were clearly, No, clearly. People would say what are you
Speaker 1: and I'd say Lebanese and they would say, oh, is
Speaker 1: that the same as Italian? I'd say, yeah, well, is
Speaker 1: that the given name when you came, when your parents
Speaker 1: came here? Nor a lot of my whole family changed
Speaker 1: their names and they came here, they came with another name,
Speaker 1: and really and they changed to Williams because it was
Speaker 1: very American. Yeah, so comally is my ex husband's name,
Speaker 1: which is Iranian. My father was Basque and his name
Speaker 1: was Marya Taggy and my mother's name was Dwahi. So
Speaker 1: not names that roll off the tip of your tongue.
Speaker 1: Was your father Lebanese? Basque? Wow, Spanish Lebanese. That's just
Speaker 1: the basket of food. I'm smelling that bash in that
Speaker 1: basket is the most fabulous vegetable on all the Lebanese staples.
Speaker 1: And cusa And you know, I made cusa this summer,
Speaker 1: probably more than I've ever made it. And it was.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly time consuming, but it gives you enough food
Speaker 1: for four days. Lebanese food is so healthy and great.
Speaker 1: I mean, Lebanese food is beyond delicious. As you know,
Speaker 1: you've been growing. You went into wellness in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: but you've been you've been juicing. Your mom has been
Speaker 1: juicing with that cadillac of juices since you were a kid.
Speaker 1: But that was really you were very much grew up
Speaker 1: like sort of every Lebanese Armenian person grew up. Food
Speaker 1: was the center of the world. And whatever else you
Speaker 1: did for living, you did so you could afford the
Speaker 1: food to eat. So I got a great package today.
Speaker 1: And so a friend of mine has an olive orchard,
Speaker 1: as you know, my my olive orchard searches has an
Speaker 1: olive orchard in the south of France, and she's doing
Speaker 1: her harvest now, and so she always picks the best
Speaker 1: kind of combination of olives for me, and so she
Speaker 1: usually sends me just when they're doing the harvest. She
Speaker 1: sends me three big leaders of olive oil, and she
Speaker 1: sent a whole bunch of smaller bottles so I can
Speaker 1: taste to pick the ones I like. Well. The package
Speaker 1: arrived today and all the small bottles were broken, and
Speaker 1: there's olive oil everywhere. I mean, and all I've wanted
Speaker 1: to do is get some bread and clean it up.
Speaker 1: I know I'm devastating, sad, that is so said, But
Speaker 1: let me ask you a day in the life of
Speaker 1: Norman now, because you get up talked about your health
Speaker 1: and regimen. Because looking at you through you've always looked amazing.
Speaker 1: I can't believe your seventy five. It's just kind of seventy.
Speaker 1: You look great, you sound like you feel great. I do,
Speaker 1: I do. So what do you do to stay hell?
Speaker 1: First of all, sleep is super important. I get eight
Speaker 1: hours sleep. Not everybody needs eight hours, but I do.
Speaker 1: So I go to bedter arl A, and I wake
Speaker 1: up early. I meditate in the morning. It's really helpful
Speaker 1: for me. I either work out in the morning or
Speaker 1: at four forty or four forty five every day. My
Speaker 1: diet is very simple. I have vegetables and some fish
Speaker 1: and avocado smoothies, berries, real simple. I take supplements and
Speaker 1: I'm I work very hard, and I learn new things
Speaker 1: all the time. And I think learning something new all
Speaker 1: the time is critical for mental health and well being
Speaker 1: and I challenge myself a lot. I mean, it makes
Speaker 1: life more fun, and sometimes many times you make mistakes
Speaker 1: and things what you would like to happen doesn't. But
Speaker 1: the process is really important. And one thing that I
Speaker 1: learned from women much older than I am. I did
Speaker 1: a survey and I interviewed women in their nineties and
Speaker 1: one hundred and over a hundred and the one thing
Speaker 1: they all had in common, the ones that were really
Speaker 1: living in good shape, is they all dance. They've loved
Speaker 1: to dance and they continue to dance. And I'm so
Speaker 1: happy because I love to dance and I just can
Speaker 1: dance all the time. If you dance, you can't hide
Speaker 1: how you feel. Right when people dance, they really expose
Speaker 1: who they are, all of it, and it's great. So
Speaker 1: I think dancing is a very important part of that
Speaker 1: whole prescription. For our fourth and final course, Norma generously
Speaker 1: shared some of her timeless wisdom for the next generation.
Speaker 1: You had a mentor, I'm sure, but you now have
Speaker 1: the ability, with all these things out there, to mentor
Speaker 1: other people. Give me your idea of mentorship because you're
Speaker 1: in such a fantastic world and now you have your
Speaker 1: billy to sort of sit back and manage mentorship. Tell
Speaker 1: me about how you do that and what what's important
Speaker 1: to you. So I just wrote a book that's going
Speaker 1: to be coming out in February. And the book really
Speaker 1: is a handbook for women. Tips on everything that I've
Speaker 1: learned from being an entrepreneur to what it's like to
Speaker 1: age with power through the decades, healthy lifestyle, beauty, tips
Speaker 1: on sleep, diet, exercise, and I put it together like
Speaker 1: a handbook so that if you were I remember when
Speaker 1: I was twenty, my mother said to me, Norma, it's
Speaker 1: all downhill from here on out. And I literally I
Speaker 1: started crying. I really felt like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be old now I'm twenty and I'm not
Speaker 1: a teenager. This is terrible. And she was so cruel,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know what, I know that I'm
Speaker 1: not the only twenty year old who feel who felt
Speaker 1: like they were getting old. And so the concept of
Speaker 1: aging with power really starts at twenty and how you
Speaker 1: decide to live your life and how you get from
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty, And then thirty is another huge, big, big,
Speaker 1: big crisis point in a woman's life, and then forty
Speaker 1: is another, and fifty is another. And so each decade
Speaker 1: has so much information, so much happened, so many great
Speaker 1: learning experiences that help us evolve and become more powerful
Speaker 1: in ourselves. But it's always good to have tips and advice,
Speaker 1: whether it's about what kind of workout to do when
Speaker 1: you're in your twenties versus your seventies, what kind of food,
Speaker 1: I mean, even if it's making a salad, that you
Speaker 1: make it yourself, that you put the ingredients, sin that
Speaker 1: you you do those kinds of things for yourself. Self
Speaker 1: love tends to sort of subliminally spread out, and you
Speaker 1: then attract people who will love you too. When you
Speaker 1: don't love yourself, you attract the wrong kind of people.
Speaker 1: And and and it's really important to take care of
Speaker 1: yourself and to think about that at twenty in every
Speaker 1: decade after that. And so I've mentored so many people, obviously,
Speaker 1: so many people in fashion and people who want to
Speaker 1: have their own businesses. But I think I would have
Speaker 1: loved a handbook get you know, going through my twenties, thirties, whatever.
Speaker 1: And the fact that I could put this together makes
Speaker 1: me feel so good because I do think when you
Speaker 1: read it when you're twenty and you read thirty again
Speaker 1: when you are thirty. It will have so much more meaning.
Speaker 1: So it's the kind of book I hope gets all
Speaker 1: rippleli It's a it's a softcover book, so you can
Speaker 1: sort of use it a lot, and I think passing
Speaker 1: it on to like all your girls can read it
Speaker 1: at different points. I'm so happy with it and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to share it with women, and I think
Speaker 1: there'll be something that everyone can find in there to
Speaker 1: use as a tip, a tool, a solution. So coming soon.
Speaker 1: I am invincible, right, that's the I am invincible. That's
Speaker 1: a great title. Norma, what a special title. Well, when
Speaker 1: women feel invincible, as you know, because you've been around
Speaker 1: a few invincible Lebanese women, they can get it done
Speaker 1: like nobody else can get it done. So if a
Speaker 1: woman feels good about herself, she truly is invincible. And
Speaker 1: the point is we're not invincible every day, but we
Speaker 1: want to increase the amount of times we feel invincible.
Speaker 1: And so that's the hope of the book. That is
Speaker 1: such a great little phrase. And I loved what you
Speaker 1: said before about taking care of yourself and loving yourself.
Speaker 1: Loving yourself doesn't mean, like you know, do everything No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that. All I means imagine that you're
Speaker 1: responsible to take care of yourself and it's someone else
Speaker 1: and you are you're responsible for that person. Treat yourself
Speaker 1: like that and it really puts it into perspective. My
Speaker 1: question to you is who do you really really fires
Speaker 1: you up now? Who's doing things that you, as as
Speaker 1: a successful entrepreneur, really respect and really wish there were
Speaker 1: more people like that When I hear somebody's story about
Speaker 1: what they do, and there are some great ones. I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by ceramics now, and there are so many brilliant
Speaker 1: sculptors and designers for the table and that is sort
Speaker 1: of where my interest is of learning, well why did
Speaker 1: she decide to do ceramics in that way? Then I
Speaker 1: feel connected. When you know that there's a craft involved
Speaker 1: in how things are made and the story that goes
Speaker 1: behind it, you really are invested in in why that
Speaker 1: has to be a part of your life. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna move out to the beach and in putting things
Speaker 1: together for for the house. I'm a minimalist anyway, So
Speaker 1: all you need is a table of bed chairs and
Speaker 1: a giant chooser. We have plenty of those do so
Speaker 1: neutri bullets and I that's I have all of me.
Speaker 1: But but bottom line is, I'm just thinking about the
Speaker 1: craft of each of those pieces. I just want them
Speaker 1: to be so beautiful in the simplest way. Not a lot,
Speaker 1: but just really great things and really good food. There's
Speaker 1: a very few people I know it's that are relevant.
Speaker 1: You know that you can name them. There's the Drexlers,
Speaker 1: There's Martha Stewart, there's you. And the reason why they
Speaker 1: all stay relevant I know them very well is they're
Speaker 1: completely into their humble They're egotistical, without question, but they're
Speaker 1: so curious and they just can't stop. I wish we
Speaker 1: had some food in front of us and we were
Speaker 1: having I know, I wish. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: sharing their afternoon with me. It's been I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: your time. Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses
Speaker 1: with Jeffreys and carrying a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Corner Table Entertainment. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasciotis.
Speaker 1: Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Hawes Dressler. Our research
Speaker 1: is conducted by jess Lynn Shields. This episode was edited
Speaker 1: and mixed by Joe Tisdall. Our talent booking is by
Speaker 1: Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was engineered by
Speaker 1: Margaret Scarion and Jonathan Haws Dressler and special thanks to
Speaker 1: our entire team Margaret Scarion, Jared Keller, Tara Halper, and
Speaker 1: Molly Swanson, without whom this would not have come together.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows