Norma Kamali has a long history of innovation and anticipating “the moment” again and again in fashion and the New York City community. In this interview recorded with a live audience at Spring Place in TriBeCa, the designer talks about her work and life and how they intersect. She describes key events in her career along with her personal transformation to a minimalist lifestyle.

“I work with a lot of e-commerce accounts, and they’re fun to work with. They’re all doing well, and when people are doing well they experiment, they want to collaborate, they want to experiment with you, and there’s conversation. When people are doing well it’s friendly and it’s happy and it’s good. When people are not doing well, some really awful things happen. Deceit and dishonesty, and stuff that you just don’t want in your life happen. But we’re in a very good time now, because e-commerce is really emerging as a way to reach individuals and to give each and every one of us an opportunity to make a choice to have great service and to have a good experience.” – Norma Kamali

Additional parts of the interview delve into Norma Kamali’s personal theories about how to improve relations between men and women, the thought and practice behind The Wellness Cafe, and her own podcast, Norma Kamali Life.