Calvin Klein Biography

Calvin Klein Inc. is a fashion brand founded in 1968 by
Calvin Klein. The company is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City
and currently owned by Phillips-Van Heusen. Like other fashion brands, Calvin
Klein established a world famous monogram: the CK emblem.

In 1968, Klein founded Calvin Klein Limited, a coat shop in the York Hotel in New
York City, with $10,000. Legend has it that a year later a buyer from Bonwit
Teller got off the elevator on the wrong floor, and ended up placing a $50,000
order. 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 mens and
womens 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. By
1971, sportswear, classic blazers as well as lingerie were added to his womens
collection. In 1973, he was awarded the Coty Award for the first time, which he
received for three consecutive years, for his 74-piece womenswear collection.
By 1977, annual revenues had jumped up to $30 million, and he had licenses for
scarves, shoes, belts, furs, sunglasses, and sheets. Klein and Schwartz were
making $4 million each. After the company signed licenses for cosmetics, jeans,
and menswear, Kleins annual retail volume was estimated at $100 million. In
1978, Klein claimed sales of 200,000 pairs of his famous jeans the first week
they were on the market. By 1981, Fortune magazine figured Kleins annual
income at $8.5 million a year. In the mid-1970s, he had created a
designer-jeans craze by putting his name on the back pocket. The jeans were
famously advertised with a commercial featuring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields
cooing in 197980 that nothing comes between me and my Calvins and
Ive got seven Calvins in my closet, and if they could talk, Id be
ruined. Controversial advertising, including a series of ads featuring
adolescents in sexually evocative poses, has been a recurring theme for the
company. Shields advertised for Klein underwear in 1984 as well.

In the late 1970s, the company also made attempts to set up
its own fragrance and cosmetics business, but soon withdrew from the market
with big financial losses. 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.

The stunning growth continued through the early eighties.
The licensing program, which brought in $24,000 when it was initiated in 1974,
had royalty income of $7.3 million ten years later. That year, worldwide retail
sales were estimated at more than $600 million. Kleins clothes were sold
through 12,000 stores in the United States and were available in six other
countries. His annual income passed $12 million.

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. And indeed, in late 1987, it
was said that the sale of the company to Triangle Industries, a container
manufacturer, had only failed because of the crashing stock market.

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
Americas 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. Other potentials like Tommy
Hilfiger Corp. and Italys Holding di Partecipazioni proved to be similar
disappointments because of CKIs steep price tag of supposedly $1 billion.
After seven months and no potential buyer, Mr. Klein announced that his empire
was not on the market any more. The company would never manage to go public,
which had supposedly been Mr. Kleins plan once. In June 2008, Calvin Klein
started to sponsor Americas Next Top Male Model, allowing the winner to embark
on a 100,000 dollar contract as well as a runway show, as a bonus, to launch
their career.

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