Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: or I'll wake up in the morning, and these incredible
Speaker 2: ideas are right in the front of my brain and
Speaker 2: I'm excited by them. Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to this episode of Math
Speaker 3: and Magic. Stories from the Frontiers and Marketing. Today, we've
Speaker 3: got someone who has succeeded through generations of innovation, tapping
Speaker 3: into the moment and using technology and creativity to build
Speaker 3: and build and build her business and her brand. It's
Speaker 3: fashion icon Norma Kamali Normal was a New York kid
Speaker 3: who went to school in New York and studied fashion
Speaker 3: illustration at fit Fashion Institute of Technology, but fell out
Speaker 3: of place with the fashion of that time. So after graduation,
Speaker 3: she took a as an airline clerk at Northwest Orian
Speaker 3: Airlines and use the perks of the job to go
Speaker 3: to London almost every weekend for four years. And that
Speaker 3: opened her mind to culture, art, fashion and different points
Speaker 3: of view, all the things that propel her to success
Speaker 3: in fashion. She was there at the great moments, including
Speaker 3: a front row seat at Studio fifty four and the
Speaker 3: transformative effect it had on culture, and how it elevated
Speaker 3: designers to celebrity status. She's also had a hand in
Speaker 3: technology and art and has always been ready to adapt
Speaker 3: to the new. She's both creative and savvy in business.
Speaker 3: She's a longtime friend and a wonderful person. Normal. Welcome, Well,
Speaker 3: thank you, Bob.
Speaker 4: That one's very nice. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to dig into a lot of meat today,
Speaker 3: but first I want to do you in sixty seconds.
Speaker 3: Were you ready to go?
Speaker 4: I'm ready?
Speaker 3: Okay, here we go. Cats are dogs, dogs, early riser,
Speaker 3: night out, early coffee or tea, tea, streaming TV or podcast.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm a big podcaster.
Speaker 3: Sneakers or heels to say both bright colors or neutrals.
Speaker 4: I do both on that one.
Speaker 3: Also, okay, powers or London London, Andy Warhol or Halston
Speaker 3: Andy Warhol, your sleeping bag, coat or your swimwear.
Speaker 4: I can't answer that it's too personal. I can't answer that.
Speaker 3: I just love all the children. Yes, all time favorite
Speaker 3: musical artist, Eda James. Smartest person you know, Gosh, I am.
Speaker 2: Very lucky to know a lot, I would say, Martin Edelman,
Speaker 2: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: There your go to exercise routine.
Speaker 2: I've been doing physy fifty seven since two thousand and six.
Speaker 4: Childhood hero Michaelangelo Believe it or.
Speaker 3: Not, technology you can't live without.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, AI favored decade now totally now.
Speaker 3: And the best advice you ever got Know.
Speaker 4: Thyself, my sixth grade teacher.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's jump down. What is so remarkable about you
Speaker 3: is that you started in the sixties and here you
Speaker 3: are today, still going strong. There's a huge lesson in
Speaker 3: this for marketers and other business people. How have you
Speaker 3: managed to be relevant through all the changes in society
Speaker 3: and culture and how have you adjusted, adapted and connected.
Speaker 4: Understanding the importance of disruption is key. All of a sudden,
Speaker 4: you're off on a path that the rest of the
Speaker 4: planet is not even thinking about anymore. Of the are off.
Speaker 2: On something else, and so the idea of disruption that
Speaker 2: you create yourself is critical. And there is no better
Speaker 2: time to explain the importance of that than right now.
Speaker 3: When you think about disruption, do you intend to disrupt
Speaker 3: or do you just see something different and you move
Speaker 3: toward that and it turns out to be disruptive?
Speaker 2: For me as a designer, I'm more intuitive, So I
Speaker 2: think that something is not right, something's not right, and
Speaker 2: then ideas come to me, and I find the ideas
Speaker 2: start to make changes in things that are going on
Speaker 2: between my last collection and now everyone in this company
Speaker 2: wants to kill me, basically because I've disrupted each and
Speaker 2: everyone their lives and what they do because I felt
Speaker 2: we were on the verge of getting too comfortable. We
Speaker 2: need to really make a big shift, and I was
Speaker 2: doing it personally, but I wasn't taking the company with me.
Speaker 2: And so hopefully they don't hate me too much longer
Speaker 2: and settle in and feel good about where the level
Speaker 2: we're at now and where we're going.
Speaker 3: You know, let's talk about creativity for a second. You
Speaker 3: said you're intuitive and the ideas come to you. Where
Speaker 3: are those ideas come from?
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: or I'll wake up in the morning and these incredible
Speaker 2: ideas are right in the front of my brain and
Speaker 2: I'm excited by them, and I don't know where they
Speaker 2: come from. It's not something I heard before, it's not
Speaker 2: something I saw anywhere. And I just really feel like
Speaker 2: there's something communicating with me in some way. I really
Speaker 2: have that experience, and I've had it for as long
Speaker 2: as I can remember, and I almost felt guilty that
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is me or something else
Speaker 2: giving it to me, and I'm sending it out there.
Speaker 2: But now more and more I hear other people have
Speaker 2: had the same experience, so there must be something about that.
Speaker 4: I don't want to question it. It's working for me,
Speaker 4: so I'm going with the flow.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny you talk about that, because I
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time thinking about it. I like,
Speaker 3: you wake up at about four or five in the
Speaker 3: morning with an idea and I can't go back to
Speaker 3: sleep until I write it down on its crystal clear,
Speaker 3: or I'm in a nice hot meditative shower and suddenly
Speaker 3: that speech I couldn't think about, or the line or
Speaker 3: the whatever, it just comes into my brain. And some
Speaker 3: people have read some on it and say, what we're
Speaker 3: doing is that when we get to the meditative state,
Speaker 3: when we get to the level that we've now connected
Speaker 3: and ideas can flow. Some say from our subconscious, which
Speaker 3: is always working on stuff into our conscious. Others a
Speaker 3: little more spiritual will say it's coming from the universe,
Speaker 3: consciousness or whatever. But if you'll let it. Every answer
Speaker 3: will come to you, but you got to get down
Speaker 3: to sort of whatever's that meditative state for you. And
Speaker 3: interesting that that does it for you too.
Speaker 2: I agree with that. I think that we need restoration.
Speaker 2: But the spirit never sleeps. The spirit is always active,
Speaker 2: the spirit is.
Speaker 4: Always in motion.
Speaker 2: And what happens is it is possible that that spirit
Speaker 2: is then bringing back something to us when we wait.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. David Eagleman, the neuroscientist from Stanford. He says
Speaker 3: consciousness is like the broom closet in the mansion of
Speaker 3: our mind, that most of us is not the conscious us,
Speaker 3: but it's the subconscious us. Let's go back a little
Speaker 3: bit in time more sort of your business origin story.
Speaker 3: You spent all that time in London at a time
Speaker 3: when it was happening there in New York was clearly
Speaker 3: behind the times mid sixties. What did that exposure in
Speaker 3: London do to you? What did it open up in you?
Speaker 2: This was a big revolution as it is now right,
Speaker 2: and the revolution then was really the change from where
Speaker 2: we were and then going into this baby boomer culture
Speaker 2: that just wore down everything. I remember going to London
Speaker 2: for the first time and not really knowing what was
Speaker 2: going on there or what was about to go on,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to start traveling. And I stayed
Speaker 2: at this little boarding house in Sloan Square, and I
Speaker 2: remember walking down the King's Road and everything was gray, gray,
Speaker 2: tweet gray sky, gray buildings, gray was raining, and I
Speaker 2: all of a sudden saw this one store and the
Speaker 2: whole front had a big colorful billboardy type cover on
Speaker 2: the top of the entrance, and this music was blaring
Speaker 2: out of the store, and I thought, what is that.
Speaker 2: I was like a mok to a flame. I felt
Speaker 2: the hair on my arms rising, and I was just
Speaker 2: drawn to this sound and to the color, and at
Speaker 2: that moment I knew something was happening, something really different
Speaker 2: was happening, and none of that was in New York
Speaker 2: or in the US yet. And I was there every
Speaker 2: weekend for four years, and through every weekend, I fortunately
Speaker 2: was in all the places where all of this was happening.
Speaker 2: And the musicians. My best friend in London's husband worked
Speaker 2: for Peter Grant, who was led Zeppelin's manager, notorious manager,
Speaker 2: and so I was staying at her house and they were.
Speaker 4: Always at her house, and there was all of.
Speaker 2: These things happening around me, and I was swept up,
Speaker 2: totally swept up. I mean, can you imagine having a
Speaker 2: conversation with Jimmy Hendrix. There, I am having a conversation
Speaker 2: with Jimmy Hendrix. I would come back to work and
Speaker 2: sit at the at my UNIVAC computer desk at the Airlines,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't even say who Jimmy Hendrix was because
Speaker 2: nobody would know because it was that early. And then
Speaker 2: when it started to come to the US, I saw
Speaker 2: how this thing just exploded. And I was not sort
Speaker 2: of a fashion of the matching hat.
Speaker 4: Gloves mad men. Look, I was never into that.
Speaker 2: And then I saw, oh, this is me, this is freedom,
Speaker 2: this is anything. Be creative, be original, be innovative. And
Speaker 2: so that message was imprinted and never left me.
Speaker 3: I'm getting in the elution here. But you opened the
Speaker 3: successful store Manhattan originally bringing clothes from London. Why did
Speaker 3: you then start doing your own clothes? What was that
Speaker 3: jump from I'm going to sell these clothes up seeing
Speaker 3: in London to my own stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, I had some ideas that I wasn't seeing anywhere,
Speaker 2: and it's very interesting. I was fearless and I just
Speaker 2: did whatever I was making eighty dollars a week, Bob,
Speaker 2: when I came up with this idea of getting a store.
Speaker 2: I found a store for two hundred and eighty five
Speaker 2: dollars a month, believe it or not, and it was
Speaker 2: in a basement, and that's where I started selling clothes.
Speaker 2: And then I thought, you know, I'm going to try
Speaker 2: and do some things. And what was fascinating was in
Speaker 2: six MONTHSS I had a full page in Harper's Bazaarre
Speaker 2: of a skirt I made, and I was like, what
Speaker 2: is what is happening? So it gave me inspiration to
Speaker 2: go on. But it was total ignorance. It was lack
Speaker 2: of knowledge or understanding of the downside risk. I just
Speaker 2: had this sense of confidence that I just don't understand
Speaker 2: where it came from.
Speaker 3: But I added, you went through a divorce and basically
Speaker 3: started over under the on my own Omo Normakomali brand.
Speaker 3: How did you make that jump? I mean that's got
Speaker 3: to be pretty scary. You get some success, leave it
Speaker 3: behind and start over again.
Speaker 2: First of all, when you get married at nineteen for
Speaker 2: all the wrong reasons. He was a terrific guy and
Speaker 2: believed in me completely and thought that I was the
Speaker 2: most talented thing ever.
Speaker 4: It was a dream.
Speaker 2: And then you know, in that ten years between nineteen
Speaker 2: and thirty, you really are developing as a human being.
Speaker 2: And when we met, I could go out dancing every
Speaker 2: night and just be the happiest person in the world.
Speaker 2: And we loved to dance together. We would win money
Speaker 2: at dance contests and it was like great. But then
Speaker 2: when we started the business, finally our lives changed so much.
Speaker 2: I was working all the time and I was so
Speaker 2: happy to have found what my love and passion would be.
Speaker 2: And he wanted a different kind of life, a more
Speaker 2: carefree life. He wasn't as interested in the business as
Speaker 2: I was, and especially at the time, I think felt
Speaker 2: intimidated that I was so into this business and he
Speaker 2: was uncomfortable with the idea of it. So eventually, you know,
Speaker 2: people behave in a crazy way, and it got to
Speaker 2: the point where I think I need to leave this.
Speaker 2: And he also controlled the money, and I had ninety
Speaker 2: eight dollars and it was a tough decision to leave
Speaker 2: because I had no power to be self sufficient, but
Speaker 2: I just did it because I thought I was just
Speaker 2: going to lose my soul if I stayed there. And
Speaker 2: being there was everything to me. So it was a
Speaker 2: big shocker, and I had no idea, I had no plan,
Speaker 2: but I knew that it was just not a good
Speaker 2: place for me to be, and so I left. And
Speaker 2: then I finally told people that I needed help and
Speaker 2: that I needed to find way to borrow money or
Speaker 2: do something. And it was a big ask because like
Speaker 2: I said, I had ninety eight dollars, but I could
Speaker 2: not believe the amount of people that really were so
Speaker 2: incredibly generous and helped me in my first business learning
Speaker 2: was paying everybody back and being religious about it, and
Speaker 2: I realized the importance of really knowing about money and
Speaker 2: being in control of how all of that works in
Speaker 2: a business.
Speaker 3: Obviously, it worked out for you. You opened your famous retail
Speaker 3: boutique Alo was fifty sixth Street. But I want to
Speaker 3: jump to one other cultural moment which you played a
Speaker 3: big role in, which was Studio fifty four. I was
Speaker 3: a young guy, came to New York in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 3: just about the time Studio fifty four open, and I
Speaker 3: was there a lot, and honestly, it was probably a
Speaker 3: turning point for me. I'd come from Chicago, grew up
Speaker 3: in Mississippi. I'd never seen anything like it. How would
Speaker 3: you describe what Studio fifty four did the culture.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing is I never really went to Studio
Speaker 2: fifty four when it was open. At that point I
Speaker 2: started dating Ian Schrieger, and I knew all about Studio
Speaker 2: fifty four. I would go and see all the decorations.
Speaker 4: For the parties and I would I knew everything.
Speaker 2: That was going on, and I was making clothes for
Speaker 2: everybody that went to Studio fifty four. It was a
Speaker 2: very prosperous time. And the way I met Ian was
Speaker 2: he wanted me to design Grace Jones' outfit for New
Speaker 2: Year's Eve and her backup guys, and that was my
Speaker 2: contribution to Studio fifty four.
Speaker 3: Well, you clearly had an impact. I think even the
Speaker 3: dorman were wearing your sleeping bag coat some cold nights. Yes,
Speaker 3: it was something different. I think all of us in
Speaker 3: New York certainly felt that we were witnessing a change.
Speaker 3: How did it affect fashion for you at that moment?
Speaker 2: You're so right that Studio fifty four had an impact.
Speaker 2: It was a global impact, just the way London was
Speaker 2: the right place at the right time in the sixties. Well,
Speaker 2: New York in the seventies had an incredible energy about it.
Speaker 2: It brought so many people to be a part of
Speaker 2: this big change and the amount of talents and the
Speaker 2: energy was extraordinary, and that was probably leave one of
Speaker 2: the highlights of New York fashion.
Speaker 3: And then when we started MTV in the early eighties
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one, you were actually the first fashion designer.
Speaker 3: You actually and Perry Ellis were the two that sort
Speaker 3: of showed up for MTV, like you sort of got
Speaker 3: it that there's something else going on. By the way,
Speaker 3: it was not only MTV, but it was cable networks.
Speaker 3: We were going from three TV networks to thirty TV
Speaker 3: networks and sort of mind blowing to those of us
Speaker 3: who had come from a very restricted TV background. How
Speaker 3: did you think about that change going on, that sort
Speaker 3: of post Studio fifty four change.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget going to the first MTV Awards with
Speaker 2: you and seeing Madonna, and that was such a great
Speaker 2: point in music history that this was this award show
Speaker 2: for a new concept in how you could see me
Speaker 2: music and hear it, and it was bold and amazing
Speaker 2: and everybody was just blown away and it captured the culture.
Speaker 2: It captured everything that was going on and including fashion.
Speaker 2: I just fell in love with it. I was so
Speaker 2: overwhelmed with excitement. And I remember I had this incredible
Speaker 2: budget with one of the companies I was doing my
Speaker 2: sweats collection with, and I had a lot of money
Speaker 2: to do whatever I wanted, and so I was sure
Speaker 2: that there would be a fashion TV that would be
Speaker 2: like MTV, where you could see fashion with music and culture.
Speaker 2: And so I did these films and I even won
Speaker 2: an award for two of the films, but nobody could
Speaker 2: see them anywhere because nobody Buddy had the goal and
Speaker 2: the balls that you had to just land this out
Speaker 2: and not get out of the park to do that.
Speaker 4: For fashion, what.
Speaker 3: Was interesting is the ancillary impact we had. And one
Speaker 3: of the things we realized, there are two things we
Speaker 3: realized is that unless you were super super famous, no
Speaker 3: one knew what the musical artists looked like, because how
Speaker 3: would you know the no internet. This stuff was not
Speaker 3: usually literal pictures on albums, and so for the first time,
Speaker 3: we sort of made people who did music celebrities. And
Speaker 3: I remember the first five or six months of MTV,
Speaker 3: we would have artists constantly coming up and saying, my god.
Speaker 3: People stopped me on the street and said, I saw
Speaker 3: you on MTV. The other thing that we had was
Speaker 3: the impact on fashion is hadn't thought about it, but
Speaker 3: we realized that TV networks that really controlled access to
Speaker 3: what Americans knew about culture. And when we kicked with MTV,
Speaker 3: we started showing these fashions that people in Middle America
Speaker 3: had never seen. They didn't know what was going on
Speaker 3: in New York or CBGB's or London or anywhere else.
Speaker 2: It's so true, and it was very organic because on
Speaker 2: some of the very early performances and videos on MTV,
Speaker 2: I saw almost my full collection worn on a screen
Speaker 2: and thought, oh my god. And I had no idea.
Speaker 2: They were just buying these things and wearing them.
Speaker 3: And that also.
Speaker 2: Had a big impact on my business. Music to people
Speaker 2: had always been my customers, but.
Speaker 4: Now it was really this was definitely a real connection.
Speaker 3: I had more Math and Magic right after this quick break,
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from
Speaker 3: my conversation Dorma Kamali before we jump to the future
Speaker 3: to today. Well, I'm going to go eaven a little farther.
Speaker 3: What lessons did you learn from your childhood that have
Speaker 3: helped you in life and your career. What was formative
Speaker 3: there for you?
Speaker 4: I think being.
Speaker 2: First generation, having a mother who was an immigrant finding
Speaker 2: her way, being an incredible image for me to follow,
Speaker 2: her work ethic, her belief in anything is possible and
Speaker 2: that it can happen in this country. All of that
Speaker 2: I am really really grateful for. I've never ever believed
Speaker 2: in my heart that something wasn't possible. I believed and
Speaker 2: I still do, that everything is possible. And she taught
Speaker 2: me that as an immigrant. So that's really deep and
Speaker 2: I'm incredibly grateful for that childhood experience.
Speaker 3: You have the mind of an artist and certainly the
Speaker 3: instincts of a business person. Have a huge name, an
Speaker 3: iconic brand, some of the great products in the history
Speaker 3: of fashion. But you never sold your business everybody else did.
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 2: At the core, I'm a creative person. I never wanted
Speaker 2: to be the most famous or the richest designer in
Speaker 2: the world. I just wanted to be creative every day.
Speaker 2: And so the idea that I would have people telling me, no,
Speaker 2: we don't want you to do that AI project that
Speaker 2: doesn't fit in with the business plan, I would be crazy.
Speaker 2: Right now if somebody told me that. So that's basically it.
Speaker 2: My purpose has always been to live a life and
Speaker 2: protect that. I guess I decided I'll figure out a
Speaker 2: way to make it work. And I don't really look
Speaker 2: at money as the most important thing.
Speaker 3: So you come up with these ideas, but you run
Speaker 3: a business. How do you harness them in the business
Speaker 3: ideas too?
Speaker 2: In time, what's happened is I've learned to treat my
Speaker 2: business creatively the way I treat the designing part of it,
Speaker 2: the way I look at design. And so I take
Speaker 2: the challenge of this four times a year, as we
Speaker 2: designed four collections a year, incorporate it into the challenge
Speaker 2: of running a business, but also making it fun and
Speaker 2: having other things that we do.
Speaker 4: Like a podcast and like many other things.
Speaker 2: And I I think by incorporating the creative into every
Speaker 2: aspect of what I do, I think about the business
Speaker 2: and I also thrive as a creative person.
Speaker 3: You've talked about you do your business to give you
Speaker 3: complete creative control. I actually was a creative guy, and
Speaker 3: I went to the business side because I simplistically thought, ooh,
Speaker 3: if I run the business, I don't have to convince
Speaker 3: anyone it's a good idea and can do whatever I
Speaker 3: want to do. What I failed to realize was once
Speaker 3: I'm the business person, I don't have time to be
Speaker 3: the creative person anymore. Somehow you figured out how to
Speaker 3: do both. How do you manage that combination.
Speaker 2: One thing that I find incredibly helpful is asking advice
Speaker 2: and listening to the advice. And there are times where
Speaker 2: I think, I don't know if that's the best advice
Speaker 2: I've been given, But just really listening and then going
Speaker 2: to sleep and letting the little spirit dance all over
Speaker 2: the place and then telling me what to do in
Speaker 2: the morning is kind of the method to how I
Speaker 2: kind of balance it. Like you said, when you're involved
Speaker 2: in one part of it.
Speaker 4: When I do the collection, I have.
Speaker 2: To trust that everyone will follow the plan and then
Speaker 2: I can fully immerse myself in the collection. And I
Speaker 2: need some time to do that and then I'll regroup
Speaker 2: with them after. So a lot of it is time
Speaker 2: management and a lot of it is just thinking of
Speaker 2: a better way when it doesn't work.
Speaker 4: But it's tricky.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're right, you think you have a plan,
Speaker 2: But the better you get at what you're doing, then
Speaker 2: the more time. You need to do it because you
Speaker 2: keep thinking of new ideas in better ways. And it's
Speaker 2: also addictive. It's very addictive when you find that risk them.
Speaker 3: Let's jump to AI and know you love AI and
Speaker 3: you have immersed yourself in it. What does it mean
Speaker 3: for fashion, for marketing and for you.
Speaker 2: My first thought about what AI could mean to me
Speaker 2: personally and for the kind of business I have came
Speaker 2: to me in Abu Dhabi talking to scientists who had
Speaker 2: an idea that they wanted to talk to me about
Speaker 2: about doing a fashion website. And it sounded incredible, but
Speaker 2: I think when they said they wanted to download my brain.
Speaker 4: I kind of like, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: And then I thought, you know, the idea is so good,
Speaker 2: and I've been a designer for fifty seven years and
Speaker 2: I have this archive that is pure nor mcmalley made
Speaker 2: be I should think about using AI to extend the
Speaker 2: life of the company way beyond me. And so ultimately
Speaker 2: I've found an AI is still in its very early stages.
Speaker 2: But two years ago I found a way to have
Speaker 2: a program built that would be custom and exclusively protecting
Speaker 2: my IP and not having anything contaminated. Then I took
Speaker 2: a short course at MIT to understand AI, to understand
Speaker 2: the language, to understand how to write a good prompt,
Speaker 2: and just really to get it so that when I
Speaker 2: had ideas, they would be based on things that could
Speaker 2: be done. And so I've already started to use the
Speaker 2: program to generate Norma Kamali designs from the Norma Kamali archive.
Speaker 2: And so it's kind of like car Lagerfeldt went to Chanell,
Speaker 2: was hired to carry the brand forward, and what did
Speaker 2: he do? He went to her archive and respected it
Speaker 2: and just did a magnificent job for many many years
Speaker 2: and created beautiful Chanel thereafter. AI is my car Lagerfeld.
Speaker 2: I've also found another way to use it that is
Speaker 2: totally creative and very exciting. I use it as a
Speaker 2: creative tool. And most people don't think that AI is
Speaker 2: creative and can hurt creativity. But in fact, the thing
Speaker 2: everybody has to really keep in mind is AI does
Speaker 2: not have a soul, does not have passion, does not
Speaker 2: have an motion or feelings. It is in need of
Speaker 2: a spirit like that, and once it is given that
Speaker 2: from a human, then it becomes genius. Then it does
Speaker 2: these things that are almost better than human, and in
Speaker 2: many cases we will see even better than human. But
Speaker 2: it needs the passion, the spirit, the emotion, and the
Speaker 2: soul to begin with, and can't live without those ingredients.
Speaker 3: As we close the episode, we want to close two
Speaker 3: pieces of advice. If someone wants to be the next
Speaker 3: Norma Kamali, if that's even possible, what would you advise
Speaker 3: them to do?
Speaker 2: Yes, so I would advise them not to be the
Speaker 2: next Norma Kamali and to obviously be their authentic selves,
Speaker 2: which is a big task. A lot of people have
Speaker 2: a problem being confident in their authentic selves. If they
Speaker 2: are interested in design, I would recommend that they take
Speaker 2: their creative skills and keep nourishing them. But I would
Speaker 2: also recommend learning as much as possible about AI, about
Speaker 2: how to use AI, what the abilities are, and they
Speaker 2: keep expanding. I'm going to be ready to take another
Speaker 2: course at MIT because so much is happening so quickly.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a new way for designers to
Speaker 2: look at how they can build a business and creativity
Speaker 2: for the future. I've already spoken to MIT about this
Speaker 2: n Yu to say, I think there should be a
Speaker 2: course on generative AI for creatives because that with the
Speaker 2: natural instinct to be creative is what we are going
Speaker 2: to need going forward.
Speaker 3: Second piece of advice. If you could go back in
Speaker 3: time and give your twenty one year old self some advice,
Speaker 3: what would that advice be.
Speaker 4: I would just leave her alone.
Speaker 2: She knew much more than I know now, or she
Speaker 2: thought she knew much, and I know now I'm not
Speaker 2: as smart as she was, to be honest, so I'd
Speaker 2: leave her alone.
Speaker 4: She's too much trouble.
Speaker 3: We usually end each episode with shout outs because this
Speaker 3: is called math and magic, the creative and the analytical.
Speaker 3: In your case, you've been on the creative side and
Speaker 3: the business side. What shout out would you give for
Speaker 3: sort of the great you can think of on the
Speaker 3: creative side and the great person you can think of
Speaker 3: on the business side.
Speaker 2: There are so many people I admire and respect, and
Speaker 2: it's really hard to pick, but I I think people
Speaker 2: who are innovatives in their business side and their creative side,
Speaker 2: and not just because we're having a conversation, but I
Speaker 2: think you're one of those people who literally changed a
Speaker 2: whole culture with an idea that you made real. That's
Speaker 2: a biggie that's really really big, and like what you've
Speaker 2: done just in the culture of music alone through the years,
Speaker 2: in so many ways is really unbelievable, and truth be told,
Speaker 2: it's not because you're asked a question.
Speaker 4: If somebody would ask.
Speaker 2: Me, there are names I would mention and you would
Speaker 2: be clearly one of those names.
Speaker 3: You are so nice, Norma. I have enjoyed our friendship
Speaker 3: over many, many decades, and I really appreciate you sharing
Speaker 3: your stories and lessons today. There as usual, both interesting
Speaker 3: and unique. Thanks. Here are a few things I picked
Speaker 3: up from my conversation with Norma. One, don't get too comfortable.
Speaker 3: You can build a decades long career by sticking with
Speaker 3: what you know. Culture is always changing and you must
Speaker 3: adapt with it to remain relevant. Norma has consistently pushed
Speaker 3: yourself and disrupted her own brand. It could be a
Speaker 3: challenge to the company, but will always pay off. Two.
Speaker 3: Run your business creatively. Norma prizes and protects her creative freedom.
Speaker 3: It's one of the reasons she started her own business
Speaker 3: so she could call the shops. But managing that business
Speaker 3: while creating four collections a year isn't easy. Norma has
Speaker 3: succeeded by doing what she does best, being creative, she
Speaker 3: makes sure the business side of her brand is full
Speaker 3: of passion and joy, just like the design side. Three.
Speaker 3: AI works best when used by innovative, passionate people. A
Speaker 3: lot of folks are afraid of AI. Norma has long
Speaker 3: been at the forefront of merging her creative pursuits with
Speaker 3: technological advances. She's confident AI is the next chapter and
Speaker 3: can never replace humans because it doesn't have the human spirit.
Speaker 3: But with a person's passion behind it, AI can build
Speaker 3: something incredible and push us all forward. I'm Bob Pittman.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Podcasts. The show is created and hosted
Speaker 1: by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom for booking
Speaker 1: and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no small feat.
Speaker 1: The Math and Magic team is Jessica Crimechitch and Baheed Fraser.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Ali Perry and Nikki Etoor.
Speaker 3: Until next time,