Calvin Klein

We believe our expertise in brand management, product design, sourcing, and other logistics provides us with the ability to successfully expand product offerings and distribution under the Calvin Klein brands while preserving the brands' prestige and global presence. As a result, we believe we have the opportunity to realize sales growth and enhanced profitability. A unisex fragrance, cKone, is introduced; the company's underwear business is licensed to Warnaco Group Inc. Born and raised in New York City's borough of the Bronx, Calvin Richard Klein decided he wanted to be a fashion designer at an early age. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1963, he worked for women's coat and suit manufacturers in Manhattan's garment district before opening his own business in 1968. A childhood friend, Barry Schwartz, loaned him $10,000 in start-up money and joined the firm a month later, after the family supermarket in Harlem that Schwartz had inherited was gutted in the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King. Klein introduced his first menswear collection in 1978, telling the New York Times Magazine that he approached men's clothing "with the same philosophy as the women's. They're for Americans who like simple, comfortable but stylish clothes--but with nothing overscale or extreme." No less than 779 fabrics were used in the European-produced collection, which ranged from neckties to suits and overcoats. The production and sale of most of the men's clothing was licensed to Bidermann Industries. Also in 1978, Calvin Klein introduced his own line of fragrances and a complete makeup collection of 18 beauty and skin-care products that stressed neutral colors to give the face a natural effect. However, the lightweight, rosy perfume (at $85 an ounce) needed to anchor the collection never caught on with the public. The fragrance and cosmetics business was sold to Minnetonka, Inc. in 1980. Calvin Klein jeans, by contrast, were to become the company's biggest hit. Klein's first attempt, in 1976, to capitalize on the designer-jeans craze--at $50 a pair--was a failure. The following year, however, his company cut a deal to design the product for Puritan Fashions Corp., the largest dress manufacturer in the world. Klein raised the groin in his jeans to accentuate the crotch and pulled the seam up between the buttocks to give the rear more shape. A Times Square billboard of model Patti Hansen on her hands and knees, her derriere arched skyward and the Calvin Klein label on her right hip visible, caused a sensation and remained in place for four years. By 1979, Calvin Klein was second to Gloria Vanderbilt in designer-jeans sales, with one-fifth of the market. A company spokesman observed, "The tighter they are, the better they sell." The biggest lift to Calvin Klein's jeans was the television campaign directed by Richard Avedon that featured 15-year-old model/actress Brooke Shields provocatively posed in a skin-tight pair of Calvin Klein jeans. In the best-remembered spot, she pronounced, "Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing." In another she declared, "I've got seven Calvins in my closet, and if they could talk, I'd be ruined." These suggestions of underage sexuality struck a public nerve and, following a flood of complaints, the New York flagship stations of all three networks banned the two ads from the air. Klein could shrug off the criticism because sales of his jeans were then climbing to two million pairs a month. He added a jeans-inspired collection that included shirts, skirts, and jackets, also licensed to Puritan. These products accounted for about $100 million in sales in 1980. In 1982, Calvin Klein entered the underwear business, once again exploiting the allure of youth in provocative poses to push the product. Photographer Bruce Weber's beefcake ads featured a brawny Olympic pole vaulter in various states of well-endowed undress. When the company rented space in 25