There hasn’t been a Calvin Klein runway show in almost seven years. Calvin Klein himself has not attended a runway show for his brand in nearly two decades. But on Friday, the brand, now designed by Veronica Leoni, and Mr. Klein returned.
It was Day 2 of New York Fashion Week and the official unveiling of the Calvin Klein Collection, the high-end, high-fashion expression of the Klein look. The one that would prove it’s not just about jeans and underwear anymore.
It was a homecoming in more ways than one.
The show was held on the ground-floor gallery space at 205 West 39th Street, the garment district headquarters where Mr. Klein moved in the 1990s and where the company remains. The space was white, as per the original Calvin minimalist aesthetic, with white benches and a white carpet displaying a new logo in the black typeface of the old Obsession perfume ads. Mr. Klein, 82, who sold his company to PVH in 2002 and has mostly been off the fashion grid since then, made his entrance in a natty, black three-piece suit and tie like a good-will ambassador from another time.
Seated next to him was his former wife, Kelly Klein, and across the runway were his former muses, Kate Moss and Christy Turlington, in tailored black Calvin coats; Ms. Moss wore a slip dress beneath her coat. Nearby, Mario Sorrenti, who had photographed her naked Obsession ads back when they were a couple, was chatting to friends.
“It’s very emotional,” Mr. Klein said of being back in his old office building and seeing his label back on the runway. It was a reminder of the heady days when Calvin Klein defined a certain kind of breathy, urbane American sportswear and drew the attention of the crowd to New York. The air was replete with nostalgia.
SOURCE: New York Times
