Living: The Hot-Selling Locker Room Look

Kamali's "sweatsuits" embody both the funky and the practical

No one has ever seen her jog. She has no time for tennis. And she certainly does not play baseball, soccer, basketball or any of the other sweaty sports that absorb millions of Americans. "Watching people on the street is my thing," says Clothes Designer Norma Kamali.

As a result of that tranquil pleasure, Kamali, 36, a petite, reclusive native New Yorker of Basque-Lebanese descent, finds herself at the center of a fashion revolution. It had its small beginnings last year on one of the trails of Manhattan. "I noticed one day that joggers weren't wearing gray any more," Kamali recalls, "and I thought, hey, what happened to sweatshirts? So I bought some sweatshirt material and began cutting and sewing."

Last spring, Kamali's sweat cloths, transformed into 35 items from miniskirts to harem pants, arrived in U.S. stores. She had taken that dull, cotton fleece, a staple of Army-Navy stores, and turned it into a line of casual haute couture outfits that could be worn to offices or parties.

None of the items sold for more than $80, and no store could keep Kamalis in supply long enough to satisfy her votaries. In one day, New York's Saks Fifth Avenue sold out its entire stock. A few blocks away, Bloomingdale's was forced to close down its separate Kamali shop this summer because her clothes went so fast the manufacturer could not keep up with reorders; hoping that the cutters and stitchers will speed things up, however, Bloomie's will open an expanded version of that shop this month. Last spring, Kamali had to lock the doors of her own New York boutique for an entire day when customers, getting wind of a fresh shipment of sweats, noisily stormed her portals. In the Chicago area, Kamali fans maintain an informal hot line on where her clothes can be found. "Kamali is going beyond anyone's imagination," says Sidney Kimmel, chairman of Jones Apparel Group, which makes her sport sweat line. "When we started getting reorders from Midwest counties not known to jump on a fad, we saw she was a universal trend." Adds Jeff Gersten, co-owner of Chicago's Sugar Magnolia boutique: "Just as there are Bruce Springsteen heads, there now are Kamali heads."

A combination of 1960s Carnaby Street funk and the locker room, the Kamali sweat look has captured the whimsical and practical sides of the American woman's fancy. "Her clothes have a little wit and a little dare," explains Vogue Editor Grace Mirabella.. But they have their drawbacks too. The exaggerated silhouette and overgrown pants and tops are not for the timid. Moreover, while sweat material is not delicate, it must get special care so it will not shrink or droop.