You may not know Norma Kamali by name, but you certainly know the designer’s fashions – from the iconic Sleeping Bag Coat, to dresses worn by celebrities like Jessica Biel. 57 years into her career, she’s added AI to her design toolbox and has never been more excited about what’s coming out of her studio. In this episode, Norma makes the case for AI as a valuable tool to enhance creativity for artists of all types, and walks Brad through her process for crafting a great AI prompt.
You may not know Norma Kamali by name, but you certainly know the designer’s fashions – from the iconic Sleeping Bag Coat, to dresses worn by celebrities like Jessica Biel. 57 years into her career, she’s added AI to her design toolbox and has never been more excited about what’s coming out of her studio. In this episode, Norma makes the case for AI as a valuable tool to enhance creativity for artists of all types, and walks Brad through her process for crafting a great AI prompt.
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Brad Smith: I am Brad Smith and this is Tools and Weapons. On this podcast, I'm sharing conversations with leaders who are at the intersection of the promise and the peril of the digital age. We'll explore technology's role in the world as we look for new solutions for society's biggest challenges.
Norma Kamali: Designers have soul and passion. AI doesn't necessarily have a soul in the same way or passion in the same way, but can be extraordinarily creative with my help.
Brad Smith: That's Norma Kamali, one of the world's most influential fashion designers. If you don't know her name, you certainly know her fashion. From the Sleeping Bag coat to Dresses Worn by celebrities like Jessica Biel. Nearly six decades into her career, it was Norma's sheer curiosity that led her to sign up for an AI class at MIT. It gave her an opportunity to learn how this technology could help her advance her design studio. In this episode, I talk with Norma about how she crafts a great AI prompt that opens the doors to creativity in fashion design.
We explore the potential of making AI education a key part of how fashion designers train for their industry of tomorrow. And through it all, Norma makes a convincing case for AI as a valuable tool to enhance creativity for artists of all types. My conversation with Norma Kamali up next on Tools and Weapons. Norma Kamali, fashion icon known to generations now of women and men because you have defined what people wear and you've made it such an art of creative expression. But now you have a fascinating story to tell about your recent experience using artificial intelligence AI. Thank you for joining me this morning.
Norma Kamali: Thank you. I'm very fortunate to live a creative life and to own my own business and to experiment in lots of different ways of how to have a good strong business, but also communicate with my followers and clients. 57 years in business is something I'm very proud of, but if I think about the number, I just say, "That's not possible. I can't be that old and it can't be that long." I can't remember a more exciting time where we see what the future can be and to be a part of it is so thrilling for me. So I investigated all of the opportunities with AI and I've spoken to people who are wiser than I am and gave me feedback and I finally took my archive and met with some people who were able to put together a custom program for me where I could use my archive to create new designs that would be protected.
So any new design that comes out is really an extension of Norma Kamali. And then I realized I need to learn, understand a prompt, understand the mechanism behind AI so that my ideas come from a place of reality, not some fantasy. So I experimented with using the content that we'd put into the archive and creating new designs from that. And from a business perspective, there are so many things I could expand on, all the things we can do with that right now. But where I had the most fun, and I should start by saying I originally wanted to be a painter. I studied anatomy, I won scholarships and grants from my paintings, so it's very much my soul. I evolved into fashion and making patterns and draping, which is my craft. So I have a hands-on creative operation every day, but when I was able to sit in my room where I have this computer and this freedom to use a new creative tool is when I totally experienced the most expressive creative experience of my career.
Brad Smith: Now I think one of the big steps in your use of AI as a tool was to get some training, and that started with your time at MIT. Tell us what did you enroll in at MIT? It was only a year and a half ago. What did it involve? How long was the program?
Norma Kamali: It was just total time I put into it was six weeks, but it was very intensive and it was generative AI. I had the opportunity to experience incredible lectures, courses, testing and doing this openly with 150 other participants from all over the world. And we were able to look at each other's responses and get feedback from each other as well as from whoever else was monitoring the class. It was for me very challenging because a new language, a new way to look at things. So sometimes I had to listen to lectures several times to really understand and then to take these words, these new words and understand them and then to understand how to break down what AI does, how AI is organized in that it's a different structure. The minute I got that, everything started to make sense. It was just at the beginning listening. It's like going in to try to learn Chinese. It was like, "Whoa, wait a minute. I have to get this." But once I got the rhythm of it, it was so exciting because I just kept thinking of ideas. I just kept thinking of possibilities and opportunities.
Brad Smith: Let me just ask you a few short questions on the course if I could, and then I want to come back to what you just were describing. First, obviously you live in New York, MIT is in Boston. Did you travel to Boston or was it all remote for you?
Norma Kamali: No, it was all remote. And like I said, there were 150 students and we were all in different places, but we were able to interact too. So that was really great and there were engineers and people who had more experience than I did in the world of technology and AI, but I really feel MIT and I feel familiar with it and I'm familiar with people and I keep in touch with them. It was right after I finished a collection, so I was able to put in a lot of time for a short period of the time, and then I added more time and less hours a day.
So you could really customize it to how you want to learn. And I think in my expression of how I feel about MIT and what I got from it, I talked to as many people as possible about it to say, "I'm a designer. I have no technology experience. If I could do it and I'm older than you are." I pull the age card in a different direction, "And I'm older than you are and you will be so inspired if you take this course. If you really think about giving yourself a learning experience, that will be hugely beneficial."
Brad Smith: What was the hardest part of taking this course for you?
Norma Kamali: I think the hardest part was being tested. I'm running a business, I'm bossing people around, and then after there would be these 60 seconds and you have to answer these questions and my heart is pounding and I'm like, "Oh my God." But I started to, "Okay, I can do this. I'll do it, so I'll figure out how to do it." But the rest of it, all of a sudden I was enjoying the learning experience and I wasn't having these test memories from when you're back in school and you're like, "Oh my God. Not a test." But going into it with some of your own experience and confidence is super helpful. And I think that the more I talk about it, the more comfortable people can be because I just described fashion designers are not known to be technology geniuses, and so you don't need to be, but you need to be informed to really look at the opportunities and experience the new world that we're going to be living in.
Brad Smith: One of the words you've been using even in this conversation that is very commonplace now in the tech sector but not necessarily in the world is prompt. And I chuckle a little bit. John Stewart had a very funny segment last year on the Daily Show when he was quite rightly poking a little fun at those of us in tech, and he actually had a clip from me and Satya Nadella talking about prompt engineers and he was like, "Oh, prompt engineer. That's like chief question asker." When you first heard that you were going to use prompts, what did you think? How would you explain that to someone who say is listening to the two of us now who hasn't had the opportunity to learn what you've learned?
Norma Kamali: Well, I think the minute I heard that you could use 35,000 words in a prompt, and I thought, "What? What? Wait a minute. Oh, okay, I understand now." I understand that it's not three words or a sentence or that it can be deeper and it can be experimental and it can be so many things. And once I understood that the language you can use in a prompt is freer than what people initially think, it then becomes fun and it then becomes the way you get into the program, the way you are part of the program, and the minute you feel at one with it, then the prompts are easier and also understanding what you want to generate. When I use prompts now, it's so much fun, it's so exciting. And this will sound like a silly example, but I can put in a prompt describing the model.
Most of my models are athletic, so I describe the physical form, I describe that this is a model in movement. I say that I want it in a studio background so there's nothing conflicting with the design. And then I connect to something in my archive, an iconic concept. It could be coats, it could be sleeping bag coats or studs or whatever I've done. And then I put in categories, say dresses, and then I can put in necklines or whatever, but I don't give it too much detail because I want it to feed me back. So when these generative, gorgeous things are happening in front of me, I then go further. I then keep pushing it further, and that's when I really see where the prompt can go next. Sometimes I mix jumpsuit with dresses and something wonderful happens and then the hallucinations start. I know this is to me, you may not like hallucinations, but I am enjoying this very short period of time where hallucinations become part of the art that I'm creating, but I realize when that is resolved, hallucinations won't be so much a part of this.
Brad Smith: Yeah, I think there's two really fascinating and insightful aspects of what you just mentioned. First, the power of the prompt. I think what you just captured in a sense is the transition from something like Google search to a Copilot with a search engine. We type in a phrase, a word, a couple of words, but with a Copilot and an AI application, a prompt is a way of asking the AI model or application to do something for you. And the more information you give it, the more you can direct it to meet your needs. So in effect, we're just learning a new way of interacting with computers by giving computers more information about what we want. That's obviously part of what you had the opportunity to learn.
Norma Kamali: Yeah, yeah. And what happens is once you're in that mode, and from the creative part of it where I just do words and just prompt and keep moving the prompts and pushing it forward, that's where the extraordinary magic happens for me as a designer and so much so that they look like art, fashion and technology together. And the three together really represent what new idea of design can be. The new idea of art, fashion and art are in a big controversial time right now. There's so much change going on in the art world, so much change in fashion, and I think bringing in the technology and bringing in AI opens this door. Again, I keep using that word to like, whoa, this is fascinating. This is a new kind of beauty, a new kind of expression that somebody like me, I could get lost in this for hours and the amount of creativity in that period of time is maybe eight months worth of work that I would do in the regular way.
Brad Smith: That is the other thing that I find so interesting because obviously think of a painter starts with a canvas. As I listen to you, this computer screen is a new type of canvas for you and the prompt is the way that you interact with it. Share a day in the life or a moment in the day. Do you find that you want to or need to get away from everyone else, close the door, sit down at your screen with a cup of coffee, or what helps you be creative in using this new tool?
Norma Kamali: First of all, a day in my life is I come in very early and I have fittings, fitting samples that are made from my sketches or either from draping or patterns that are creative, and that's my craft. And then these samples are produced and I either change them, change the length, or change something about them, make it fit better, and then that process keeps going to become styled for a photo shoot and then for a fashion presentation. So every day I'm in some process of that and other parts of the day I'm the business person and negotiating and doing all of those things that I enjoy too. I enjoy very much actually. But then at lunch, I close the door and I go into this place and it's just like going into fantasy land.
It doesn't replace, and I really want to make a point about this, it doesn't replace the painter in me. It doesn't replace the craft of making patterns and the craft of draping and the craft of doing fittings. It's not replacing this. It's adding to my experience. It's bringing in a new inspiration. It's bringing to me so much more than I've had before, but it is not replacing my job. It's not replacing my passion as a designer, my soul as a female expressing clothes for other women. What it is doing is it is freeing up my mind and opening my mind to so much more that I can do that I didn't realize I could do. Having this tool just makes what I do better. So for all the people that are afraid of losing a creative job, like being a writer or a designer or an artist, I really want to be sure I'm being very clear that it is not replacing my job as a designer because designers have soul and passion.
AI doesn't necessarily have a soul in the same way or passion in the same way, but can be extraordinarily creative with my help, with my input, with my experience added to what AI does. And from that, I am not imposing my concerns about paying bills or my concerns about how it's going to fit or my fears about will this sell. AI doesn't care about that unless I want it to, unless I put in the prompt I want it to do certain things. But it just is doing free expression. And for me as a creative person, I am excited by it. It's like having a new way to look at my job after 57 years. This is the first time I'm looking at what I do in a completely different way. That is so exciting. Again, I just have to say this is the most excited I've been since I began in the creative opportunities using AI.
Brad Smith: Well, what I think you just captured is not just important but profound because it's actually, in my view, a philosophical question. It is a question that is relevant to almost every issue of public policy relating to AI. And the fundamental question is this. Are we trying to make technology that is better than people or are we trying to create technology that will help make people better? And I believe so strongly in the second path. That's one of the many reasons I find so interesting how you are using it. Let me just ask you a couple more questions about how you use it. Can you walk us through just a scenario, a moment where you had an inspiration in your head and how you brought that to life by interacting with your AI application, the prompt, what it did for you and how you felt when it did that?
Norma Kamali: Well, I'm going to use a very practical example so that you can understand the value of it to my company also. So I just had an installation to show the examples of how I'm using AI, and one of the parts of the installation were four mannequins in four different styles. One style was a dress I did several years ago and it was very popular and I did many versions of it. I did gowns and all kinds of versions, and I recently saw a photo of Jessica Biel on the set of her new movie, and she's wearing the dress and she's gorgeous, looked extraordinarily beautiful in the dress, and I said, "I should probably do that dress again."
So I had my staff make up some samples to see it again, and then I thought, "Let me do a jumpsuit. I'll do that also." Did the pattern, did that. Then I thought, "Sales is going to ask me for more dresses. They always do. So let me think about what to do." And I had a mental block because all I could think of was how great Jessica Biel looked, especially with the top part of the dress. I couldn't think of anything else. So I went to my AI and I put up a picture of the dress and wrote a prompt to it so that I would have generated a number of styles from the original and all of them, and there were so many, looked exactly like I did them, except my mind couldn't go there.
And the reason my mind couldn't go to where AI went was I was so emotionally focused on that picture of Jessica Biel, I couldn't think beyond it. It was so beautiful. I could not think beyond it, but AI did not see the picture of Jessica Biel. It didn't have an emotional connection to it, so it had no constraints emotionally on all the possibilities that could come from that dress. So there were fantastic options that didn't have the restriction of an emotional connection. So in some ways, the emotion is what will differentiate us from AI in other ways the emotion is what gets in the way of where we can go, and AI frees us of that. So there's so many ways of looking at how to get a result and the passion emotion can go one way or the other.
Norma Kamali: So what happened was I put two of my favorites that were generated and looked just like something I would do, except my head couldn't go there yet. Maybe in a week or two weeks it would, but not then. And we put them up for the spring collection and it was part of our sale, and I was just so curious to see how the buyers would react. Nobody in a million years would've thought AI had anything to do with it. And I told everybody I wanted to see the reaction would, it's very controversial, I don't want something that AI designed, people are saying all these things, but nobody could in any way say that they didn't look like my designs because I was convinced they looked like that I did that somehow I know I would've done that.
Brad Smith: And what you said is the AI gave you options. You used your artistic judgment to then choose from among the options both at a piece-by-piece level, and how it fit into your overall collection. So it's not as if you stopped being creative, you just had a new tool and that enabled you to be creative in a new way.
Norma Kamali: And on some of them, I asked to make it longer to add something else. Then it was like, "Oh, wow, this is great." Then I got creative again. Then I had all of these ideas because it opened the door for me. It said, "You're not stuck on this Jessica Biel picture anymore. Now you're looking at all the other opportunities." So I did interact again to get more from what it was giving me. And some of them I thought, "Well, this would be great as a gown or this would be really good as a little mini dress for my younger customer." And so once it starts, then if you are creative, then you want to join the party because then there's so much more you can do.
Brad Smith: One semi-technical question, because I know you've had a little bit of visibility to this. You are the user sitting at the computer using your creativity, but you're benefiting from work that what I think you hired a company to help you do, to take all of your data, build a data set with all of your creations and fine tune an AI model based on it. What kind of company or what firm did you work with in New York?
Norma Kamali: Well, it's actually, it's a fantastic, it's a new company, a year and a half old and creative people. The name of the company is Metamason, and they're really fantastic. They're really good friends of mine, and I feel very strongly a part of the company. They worked with me, they listened to what I needed and what I wanted, and they really spent the time to put the program that would work for my needs in place. And every time I come up with a new idea, which unfortunately is like every half hour, I talk to them about what's the possibility? How can I do this? I have a lot of ideas for AI, and whenever I present them with what is it I need to get these done, they're very talented and very creative. They're technology, but also they have big deep roots in fashion.
Brad Smith: Interesting.
Norma Kamali: And in the industry and in advertising and all of that. So it's a unique combination, but they have an incredible potential for bringing this kind of service to more creative people.
Brad Smith: Basically, it's an AI startup that knows this part of the economy, the fashion industry. They created a customized AI application for you based on your creations to help you be more creative.
Norma Kamali: Yeah. And we keep adding to my archive because we have four collections a year, and so we're literally putting in a thousand designs a week.
Brad Smith: Wow.
Norma Kamali: Yes.
Brad Smith: I think you must have more than one idea every half hour if you're.
Norma Kamali: Well, don't forget, this is many years of, it's a lot of work putting in everything. And the more we can put in, obviously the potential is so much better and greater.
Brad Smith: One final question. As someone who's been in the fashion industry for 57 years and still has ambition to remain in the fashion industry for a long time, imagine you're talking with my daughter. She's in her twenties interested in design, and she might ask, "Is this the right industry for me? Will I be replaced by AI? For my career, will my opportunities diminish? Or is this a tool that will expand them?" You bring now a point of view. What advice would you offer?
Norma Kamali: Well, I think the first thing I would say is if she wants to be a fashion designer, I would recommend definitely taking course at MIT. ITI think it's good to know the craft, but in most design fashion schools, a lot is done digitally. A lot of the things that I do are not done the way they used to be. That's why I am a big proponent of MIT incorporating a course that would really be helpful to creative people. And it doesn't have to just be fashion design, but for creative people to learn AI through a creative perspective. And I'm happy to put my 2 cents in on that because I would love more and more. I would love your daughter to be a designer and come into this with a new generation perspective and her own creative. If you're creative and artistic, you don't have to be taught that, but you should be taught all the new medium so that you really have every opportunity to have a very expansive creative career.
And having that MIT or some sort of a course that can help creative people, I think would be the plus. I think fashion schools would do well to incorporate that into their curriculum, and in time they will. But I believe a course like the one I took, and I'm going to have to go back because things move so quickly as you more than anybody knows, to catch up and to know what else is happening. I like to invite people on my podcast that are experts and know more about AI than I do. I had some of my professors on because I thought they were so good to hopefully inspire people to think about learning more. So for your daughter, if she's creative, nobody needs to teach her about creativity. She just needs to find inspiration. But I would say, you know what? Why not take the course I took? Or maybe there's another one, and then find whatever school. But you need to do both right now to really experience what the future is for a creative person.
Brad Smith: Well, I think that's a great point to draw as a conclusion, the world's always changing. Technology is always changing. If we keep learning and using technology, we can find new sources of inspiration and new sources of human creativity. Norma Kamali force for fashion, and now an expert, I dare say in how to use AI. Thank you so much.
Norma Kamali: Thank you, Brad. This was so much fun. Thanks a lot.
Brad Smith: Good. Thank you. You've been listening to Tools and Weapons with me, Brad Smith. If you enjoyed today's show, please follow us wherever you like to listen. Our executive producers are Carol Ann Browne and Aaron Thiese. This episode of Tools and Weapons was produced by Corina Hernandez and Jordan Rothlein. This podcast is edited and mixed by Jennie Cataldo with production support by Sam Kirkpatrick at Run Studios. Original music by Angular Wave Research. Tools and Weapons is the production of Microsoft, made in partnership with Listen.