Calvin Klein

History

The early years

Calvin Klein was one of several design leaders raised in the Jewish community in the Bronx, along with Robert Denning and Ralph Lauren. He became a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg.

In 1968, Klein founded Calvin Klein Limited, a coat shop in the York Hotel in New York City, with $10,000. The first Calvin Klein collection was a line of "youthful, understated coats and dresses" featured at the New York City store Bonwit Teller.

In September 1969, Klein appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine.

1970s

In 1973, Klein received his first Coty American Fashion Critics' Award for his 74-piece womenswear collection – the youngest recipient at that time. He won the award again in 1974 and 1975. By 1977, annual revenues had increased to $30 million (equivalent to $159 million in 2025), and Klein had licenses for scarves, shoes, belts, furs, sunglasses, and bedsheets. Klein and Schwartz were making $4 million each. After the company signed licenses for cosmetics, jeans, and menswear, Klein's annual retail volume was estimated at $100 million (equivalent to $531 million in 2025). By 1981, Fortune figured Klein's annual income at $8.5 million. In the mid-1970s, he had created a designer-jeans craze by putting his name on the back pocket. Klein's design assistant at the time, Jeffrey Banks, has claimed credit for the logo garments, stating that he had the logo from a press folder silkscreened onto the sleeve of a brown T-shirt as a present for Klein. The gift was assumed by Schwartz to be part of the upcoming line, and similar logo shirts formed the uniform for the front-of-house staff at Klein's next catwalk show, leading to buyer demand.

1980s

The American market of men's underwear was changed – from one where most men's underwear was white, purchased in packs of three by a "wife, mother or girlfriend when they needed to be" to one where "the American male [cares] about the brand of something few ever see".

1990s

Although the company struggled financially in the early 1990s, Calvin Klein managed to regain and increase profitability throughout the later 1990s, mainly through the success of his underwear and fragrance lines, as well as the ck sportswear line. During his 1990–1995 stint as Calvin Klein's head of menswear design, John Varvatos pioneered a type of men's underwear called boxer briefs, a hybrid of boxer shorts and briefs. Made famous by a series of 1992 print ads featuring Mark Wahlberg, they have been called "one of the greatest apparel revolutions of the century."

2002–present: Acquisition by Phillips van Heusen

In mid-December 2002, Calvin Klein Inc. (CKI) was sold to Phillips Van Heusen Corp (PVH), whose then CEO Bruce Klatsky was the driving force behind the deal, for about $400 million in cash, $30 million in stock as well as licensing rights and royalties linked to revenues over the following 15 years that were estimated at $200 to $300 million.

PVH outbid VF Corp., the maker of Lee and Wrangler jeans, which had also been interested in the jeans, underwear and swimwear business of CK that had been controlled by Warnaco Group, maker of Speedo swimwear in the US, since 1997. The deal with PVH did not include these businesses, and they remained with Warnaco. Unable to pay debts from acquisitions and licensing agreements and due to bad publicity by a later dismissed lawsuit with Calvin Klein over selling license products to retailers other than agreed upon with Calvin Klein, Warnaco had filed for chapter 11 protection in mid-2001 but eventually emerged from bankruptcy in February 2003.

Brand ambassadors

Calvin Klein has filmed advertising and social media campaigns with a network of celebrities, some of whom also serve as brand ambassadors. Their brand ambassadors include: Kendall Jenner, Jennie, Hailey and Justin Bieber, Disha Patani, Jung Ho-yeon, Bella Hadid, Kaia Gerber, Jungkook, Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein (as NewJeans and later NJZ) and, Mingyu.

Models

Calvin Klein has worked with numerous models on advertising and social media campaigns, including: Adwoa Aboah, Jourdan Dunn, Ashley Graham, Imaan Hammam, Karlie Kloss, Kelsey Merritt, Kate Moss, Simon Nessman, Sean O'Pry, Emily Ratajkowski, Brooke Shields, Lucky Blue Smith, and Liu Wen.

Locations

Stores

Calvin Klein Collection

In the late 1990s, the company opened elegant Calvin Klein Collection stores in Paris, Seoul, and Taipei and ultra high-end cK Calvin Klein stores in Hong Kong, Milan, and Kuwait City. As of today, all stores are closed. Out of the two Calvin Klein Collection stores that existed in the US, the Dallas location in Highland Park Village which had been open for 20 years was closed in mid-2005. The only international location, in Paris, was closed by PVH in March 2006. The New York store, which serves as the company's flagship store at 654 Madison Ave., permanently closed in spring 2019. Partners maintain Calvin Klein Collection stores in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Dubai, and Qatar.

Controversies

In 1980, Richard Avedon photographed and directed a Calvin Klein Jeans campaign that featured a fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields. Some of those advertisements were banned by some stations, including an infamous advert where Brooke asks, "D'you wanna know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing!," often misquoted as "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins."

The 1995 adverts promoting Calvin Klein jeans received criticism for being "kiddie porn".

In August 2012, Lululemon Athletica filed suit against Calvin Klein and supplier G-III Apparel Group for infringement of three Lululemon design patents for yoga pants. The lawsuit was somewhat unusual as it involved a designer seeking to assert intellectual property protection in clothing through patent rights. On November 20, 2012, Lululemon filed a notice of voluntary dismissal in the Delaware courts based upon a private settlement agreement reached between the parties that would dismiss the suit. According to a Lululemon press release, "Lululemon values its products and related IP rights and takes the necessary steps to protect its assets when we see attempts to mirror our products."

In 2014, Klein was criticized for the designation of Myla Dalbesio in its "Perfectly Fit" which offended many women as it is made for plus sizes.

In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands, including Calvin Klein, of being connected to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang.