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When London's kooky clothes ran low, Kamali began making her own. Years ahead of the fashion pack, Kamali designed hot pants in 1969, the first in the U.S. "I can make something to wear out of anything," is her motto, and true to it, in 1974 Kamali took a nylon parachute, rip cords and all, and produced the first fashionable jumpsuits. A couple of years later, Kamali, owner of a sleeping bag, realized she would no longer have time to go camping, once her favorite pastime. So she cut up the bag, fashioned a fiber-filled coat and thus was born the precursor of the down clothing rage. Right now, she is working on a new inexpensive line for young children.
Kamali's work methods are unique.
Unlike other designers who create from sketches, Kamali drapes a fabric over her own body to see how it falls. She then begins cutting and sewing with the fabric still on her. It is from this master sample that patterns are made. This curious system may well stem from her teen-age days, when she would stitch herself into tight pants, then extricate herself with a seam ripper.
Divorced nine years ago and still single, Kamali rarely goes to parties or socializes, and spends most of her time in the basement workroom of her midtown Manhattan store. She lives next door to her shop with a miniature dachshund, Ernie, in a small, one-bedroom converted marble showroom. Though the name of her shop—OMO, for On My Own—has a militant ring, Kamali is not an ardent feminist. (The first business she shared with her husband was called Kamali, and to break clean with the past she settled on the name OMO for her sleek, new, triple-level boutique.) She rarely travels, often works until midnight and has not taken a day off in months. "I know I'm intense," she says, "but I express humor in my clothes. I'm even trying to find a Mel Brooks to spend the rest of my life with."
A maverick among designers, Kamali refuses to do fashion shows, feeling they stroke designers' egos more than they benefit customers. Often Kamali waits anonymously on customers. In that role, she gets honest feedback on her clothes: "You know instantaneously if you're right on target or if you're not with what people need and want." Kamali believes she has heard the message: she's going to keep on sweating. —By Georgia Harbison