Calvin Klein is an American designer born in 1942 in the Bronx, New York.
Klein began his label of classic separates with a coat shop called Calvin Klein Limited in New York in 1968, before launching sportswear, blazers and lingerie in 1971. He received his first Coty American Fashion Critics' Award in 1973, and by 1977 the company's annual revenues had reached $30million.
In the 1970s, Calvin Klein debuted his now-iconic jeans line, followed by the launch of super-successful men's and women's underwear collections featuring celebrities like Brooke Shields in the 1980s and Mark Wahlberg, showing off his abs in only boxers. Calvin Klein's underwear business became so successful that the term "Calvins" became synonymous for underwear. Recently Eva Mendes also modeled for them.
Today the Calvin Klein brand is known for its high-fashion, minimalist Calvin Klein Collection label (designed by Francisco Costa since 2003), its menswear division (designed by Italo Zucchelli) , as well as sportswear, home, jeans, underwear, lifestyle, watches, jewellery, and ck Calvin Klein lines. Calvin Klein has also had commercial success with its fragrance division, which includes the perfumes Eternity, Euphoria, Obsession and CK One.
By Brogan Driscoll & Jen Barton