 Norell's career in the fashion industry spanned five decades, beginning in 1922, when he worked as a costume designer for Paramount Pictures in Astoria, Queens, until his death in 1972, when he was the sole owner of his own fashion house on New York City's Seventh Avenue.Over the years Norell's clients included Hollywood film stars and entertainers, as well as socialites and the wives of politicians and industrialists.Called the "dean of American fashion designers," Norell was the first recipient of the first fashion industry critics’ Coty Award.