Calvin (Richard) Klein - Creating the Calvin Klein empire, Acquisition by Phillips-Van Heusen, Current licenses
Fashion designer, born in New York City, USA. He graduated from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology in 1962, gained experience in New York, and set up his own firm in 1968. He quickly achieved recognition, and became known for understatement and the simple but sophisticated style of his clothes, including designer jeans. He later added designer accessories, cosmetics, and homeware.
In addition to clothing, Calvin Klein also gave his name to a range of perfumes, including CK One and CK Be (fragrances for both genders), now owned by Coty Inc. Swatch Group manufactures watches and jewelry under the Calvin Klein and Calvin Klein Jeans brands.
Klein was one of several design leaders raised in the Jewish immigrant community in the Bronx, New York along with Robert Denning and Ralph Lauren. Calvin Klein became a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg through whose introductions he became the toast of the New York elite fashion scene, even before he had his first mainstream success with the launch of his first jeans line. Calvin Klein was immediately recognised for his talent after his first major showing at New York Fashion Week. Klein was hailed as the new Yves Saint-Laurent, and was noted for his clean lines and straight cuts on coats and suits.
Creating the Calvin Klein empire
In 1968, Klein and his childhood friend Barry Schwartz, who was to manage the business, then initially founded Calvin Klein Ltd., a coat shop in the York Hotel, in New York City with $10,000. It is more likely though, that Klein showed his work to Bonwit Teller staff, which led to the first Calvin Klein collection: a line of men's and women's coats featured at the New York City store.
In 1969, Mr. Klein, who was later described as "the supreme master of minimalism," appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine. After the company signed licenses for cosmetics, jeans, and menswear, Klein's annual retail volume was estimated at $100 million. The jeans were famously advertised with a commercial featuring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields cooing in 1979/80 that "nothing comes between me and my Calvins" and "I've got seven Calvins in my closet, and if they could talk, I'd be ruined." In the 1980s, as the designer-jeans frenzy reached its all-time high, Calvin Klein introduced a highly successful line of boxer shorts for women and a men’s underwear collection which would later gross $70 million in a single year. Calvin Klein’s underwear business, promoted later in the 1990s with giant billboards showing images of pop singer "Marky Mark" Mark Wahlberg, was so successful that his underpants became generally known as "Calvins."
Financial problems, increased pressure from all sides, disagreements with the licensee of the menswear line and its disappointing sales as well as an enormous employee turnover both within Calvin Klein and its licensing partners led to the first rumors that Calvin Klein Industries, as the company had been known by then, was up for sale.
Although the company almost faced bankruptcy in 1992, Calvin Klein managed to regain and increase the profitability of his empire throughout the later 90s, mainly through the success of its highly popular underwear and fragrance lines, as well as the cK sportswear line. Mr. Klein was named "America's Best Designer" for his minimalist all-American designs in 1993, and it came as a surprise in 1999 when it was announced that CKI was again up for sale. Planning to expand its business, the company had been approached by two luxury goods companies, LVMH and Pinault Printemps Redoute, to join Calvin Klein, but nothing resulted.
Acquisition by Phillips-Van Heusen
In mid-December 2002, Calvin Klein Inc. The sale also included an ongoing personal financial incentive for Mr. Klein based on future sales of the Calvin Klein brand. 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 of 2003. It is said that talks between Calvin Klein and PVH had begun as early as 2000.
The transaction between Calvin Klein and PVH was financially supported by Apax Partners Inc., a New York private equity firm, which is said to have made a $250 million equity investment in PVH convertible preferred stock, as well as a $125 million, two-year secured note, all in exchange for seats on the board of PVH. In the beginning, Mr. Klein himself, who was included as a person in the 15-year contract he had signed with PVH, remained creative head of the collections but then continued as an advisor (consulting creative director) to the new company from 2003 on and has since more and more withdrawn from the business. Mr. Klein has appeared in the news from time to time since then when his name was associated with drug abuse, withdrawal treatments and public nuisance.
Current licenses
In early 2003, it was announced that Vestimenta SpA of Italy would be entrusted with the manufacture and distribution of Calvin Klein Collection for men and women – the label's pricey high-end haute couture designer line which these days is shown on runways during the fashion weeks in New York and Milan – while design, marketing, advertising and public relations as well as control over the distribution of the line remained with CKI. of Chesterfield, Missouri had been selected as a strategic licensing partner to produce, source and distribute a Calvin Klein women's better sportswear line to launch in North, Central and South America in late 2004. GAV, a Manhattan based company, already then designed and manufactured for ck Calvin Klein and Emanuel Ungaro. The cooperation between Kellwood and GAV was ended on friendly terms in September 2005 with Kellwood being left solely responsible for the women's sportswear line while the other parties could focus on their ck Calvin Klein bridge business.
Just recently (December 2005), the Warnaco Group announced that in 2006 they would acquire 100% of the shares of the companies that operate the licenses and related wholesale and retail businesses of Calvin Klein Jeans and accessories in Europe and Asia as well as the cK Calvin Klein bridge line of sportswear and accessories in Europe from Fingen SpA, a Florentine holding company, and Euro Cormar SpA for €240 million. Fingen, a company controlled by the Italian Fratini family, had held a 90% share in the European Calvin Klein business – which was managed by Fabio Fusco – since 1995 with CKI owning the remaining 10%. Additionally, beginning in 2008 and continuing through December 2013, Warnaco will assume the license for Calvin Klein Collection men's and women's apparel and accessories worldwide from Fingen, with Mr. Fusco remaining in charge after the completion of the deal. for the Calvin Klein women's better sportswear line and with GAV for the ck Calvin Klein bridge sportswear business.
In 1997, Calvin Klein International and Swatch Group signed a license agreement. Since this date, the company Calvin Klein Watches & Jewelry has been creating and marketing watches, and more recently jewelry, for Calvin Klein International.
Designers at Calvin Klein
The current creative director for Calvin Klein Collection for women is Brazilian-born Francisco Costa who had already worked with Mr. Klein directly before the founder’s departure from the company.
Italo Zucchelli, a former Jil Sander and Romeo Gigli designer, had collaborated with Calvin Klein for six seasons before he became head designer of the Calvin Klein Collection menswear line in spring 2004.
Calvin Klein stores
In the late 1990s the company opened elegant Calvin Klein Collection stores in Paris, Seoul, and Taipei and ultra-fancy cK Calvin Klein stores in Hong Kong, Milan and Kuwait City. As of today, there is only one Calvin Klein Collection store operated by CKI. The Calvin Klein stores in Milan, Moscow, Barcelona, Rome, Dubai (two locations), Seoul, Singapore and Taipei are maintained by partners.
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. In Europe, Calvin Klein is predominantly known for his underwear, and perhaps the Collection business, rather than for the medium-priced sportswear lines. The Warnaco Group, in addition, maintains Calvin Klein Jeans and corresponding outlet stores. Apart from signature Calvin Klein Underwear boutiques, there are also several Calvin Klein Outlet stores, mostly located within factory outlet malls in the US, that sell the sportswear and cK lines at reduced prices but do not carry the Collection lines.
With the fall 2006 Collection runway presentations in New York City, CKI inaugurated an 8,600 sqft show room space that can seat up to 600 people on the ground floor of 205 West 39th Street, in Times Square South where Calvin Klein has been headquartered since 1978.
In 2006 two Calvin Klein Jeans boutiques opened in Cairo and Alexandria Egypt, selling only Calvin Klein Jeans. Also in 2006, Calvin Klein opened three boutiques (including a store selling only underwear) in Istanbul/Turkey.
Calvin Klein brands
The most visible brand names include:
Calvin Klein Collection Calvin Klein cK Calvin Klein JeansLicenses are in effect for the most of the above mentioned brands' jeans, kids clothing, underwear, swimwear, sleepwear, hosiery and socks, watches, fragrance, eyewear and home lines/collections.
Calvin Klein fragrances
Calvin Klein is famous for the label's various lines of perfumes and colognes. Their perfumes and the corresponding fragrance lines used to be maintained by Calvin Klein Cosmetics Company (CKCC), a Unilever company, until recently when in May 2005 cosmetics giant Coty, Inc. [year of launch]
Calvin (men) [1981] Obsession (men and women) [men 1986, women 1985] Eternity (men and women) [1989] Escape (men and women) [men 1993, women 1991] cK one (unisex) [1994, 'Red Hot' edition 2000, 'Graffiti' art edition 2003] cK be (unisex) [1996] Contradiction (men and women) [men 1998, women 1997] Truth (men and women) [men 2002, women 2000] Crave (men) [2002] Eternity Purple Orchid (women) [2003] Eternity Moment (women) [2004] Obsession Night (men and women) [2005] Euphoria (women) [2005] Eternity Summer (men and women)[2006] Euphoria (men)[2006] cK Eletric(unisex) [2006]Trivia
Klein was the victim of a pieing in 2001 at a fashion premiere at New York's Lincoln Center, although he was not the intended target. Calvin Klein was also an alias of the character Marty McFly in the first two Back to the Future films (1985 and 1989) after a mix-up with his young mother in which she saw the name written on Marty's underwear and assumed it to be his own.Advertising
The Calvin Klein company, like many in the fashion industry, is known for its eye-catching advertising. Calvin Klein's advertising campaigns are frequently controversial, but prove this can be very successful - to the point of making a blitz career. Another Hollywood star owing his respectable career to the Calvin Klein advertisements is Antonio Sabato Jr..
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