Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein is an American fashion brand founded in 1968. The brand has its heyday in the eighties and early nineties when the market for designer jeans reached a frenzy point. Their popularity was no doubt helped by the notoriously provocative advertising - they were criticised in 1980 for a television spot shot by Richard Avedon featuring a then fifteen year old Brooke Shields and the famous line, “Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Despite being banned by several major network affiliates, the controversy only added to the appeal - royalties in 1980 were ten times what they’d been only two years previously.

In 1978, Calvin Klein debuted its first fragrance, Calvin Klein for Women. However, the cosmetics market proved more difficult for the brand, and they closed that arm of the business at the end of 1979. Less than one month later, it was bought by Robert Taylor, the president of personal care company Minnetonka. Calvin for Men launched in 1981 to disappointing sales. It would be another four years before they finally got a foothold in the fragrance market.

Obsession launched in 1985 and instantly became a bestseller. The spicy, classic Oriental bore all the hallmark of 1980’s power fragrances - it was heady, bold and could be detected in microscopic quantities by Russian space stations. The first television commercials were again directed by Richard Avedon - four unashamedly pretentious thirty-second spots featuring model Josie Borain stomping through stark surrealist settings, discarding frustrated suitors in her wake. Though certainly entertaining, it was the nineties print ads that once again caused a stir. Shot by Mario Sorrenti in black and white, and they featured a very young and very naked Kate Moss, whose gaunt frame was accused of promoting the “heroin chic” aesthetic.

In 1988, the brand launched its most successful fragrance to date - Eternity, created by the legendary Sophia Grojsman, which has over forty flankers at the time of writing. The name was inspired by a family ring given to Wallis Simpson by Edward VIII which Klein had purchased for his then-wife at an auction. After the excesses of Obsession, the ads for Eternity were comparatively innocent and clean-cut, perhaps foreshadowing the return to minimalism of early nineties fragrances. 

CK One, launched in 1994, was age first explicitly unisex fragrance to land in mainstream department stores. The brand itself did not use the word unisex, instead preferring the tagline, “One For All”. The advertising campaign (again, featuring Kate Moss) tapped into the nineties fascination with androgynous fashion and is still used as a case study in concepts of gender in marketing. 

The dawn of the new millennium saw the Calvin Klein Collection’s fashion credentials beginning to fade. Only one company-owned Collection store remains - the flagship in Manhattan. Although it can still be found in international markets, these are operated by franchise partners. Underwear, jeans and fragrance can still be found in both standalone and department stores. In 2005, the license to manufacture CK fragrances was bought from Unilever by Coty, Inc.

In 2010, animal behavioural researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society revealed that they were using Obsession for Men to attract jaguars and pumas to their hidden cameras. It can also be used to attract ocelots, peccaries, coati and tapirs.