Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein (born November 19, 1942, Bronx, New York, U.S.) is an American fashion designer whose name became synonymous with minimalist design and provocative marketing. Over several decades Klein built one of the most influential fashion labels in the world, spanning apparel, accessories, fragrances, and home goods.

Early life

Klein was born to a family of immigrants. His father, Leo Klein, had emigrated from Budapest as a child and later became a grocer, and his mother, Flore Klein (née Stern), was the daughter of an American dentist and a seamstress from Austria. Calvin Klein grew up in the Bronx with an elder brother and a younger sister. He also had a couple of close childhood friends, including Jayne Centre, whom he began dating when they were in junior high, and Barry Schwartz, his best friend from childhood. Klein studied at the High School of Industrial Arts and then the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. After graduating in 1962, Klein went to work as an apprentice designer for a coat-and-suit manufacturer in the New York garment district. In 1964 he married Centre, and the couple had a daughter, Marci Klein, in 1966.

Starting the brand

While maintaining his day job, Calvin Klein started his own company in 1968 with financial assistance from Schwartz. At the time, the New York fashion industry was in a depressed period, with casual hippie-style clothing and the miniskirt defining the range of fashions. Klein undertook to provide simple, understated clothing. Describing his early work to Vanity Fair in 2008, Klein said, “I thought American women needed to be more streamlined. They moved faster, they were working, they were raising kids. It was that time when rules were changing. They were busy—they didn’t have time to change. They went to work, to the theater, to a restaurant. That was my inspiration.” Though noted at first for suits and coats, Klein gained the attention of Bonwit Teller with his simple sleeveless shift dresses. As the story goes, he carted a rack of his garments nearly a mile and a half to show the luxury department store’s president and left with a $50,000 order (about $478,000 in 2026).

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Early success

The collection sold well, but the early success of the brand also relied on Klein and Schwartz’s relentless self-promotion. They handled their own public relations, cold-calling buyers, fashion insiders, and influential industry tastemakers. By 1973 Klein had begun to place more emphasis on sportswear, particularly interchangeable separates, and was awarded the first of his many Coty Awards for womenswear. The prestigious prize was bestowed by cosmetics company Coty between 1942 and 1984 to recognize American designers. Klein also won in 1974 and 1975, becoming the first designer to win three consecutive Coty Awards for womenswear. In his early 30s, he also became the youngest designer of ready-to-wear clothes ever elected to the Coty Hall of Fame in 1975. He described his design philosophy as making “simple, comfortable but stylish clothes—but with nothing overscale or extreme.” His clothes were classic, elegant, and easy to wear, and they struck a responsive chord among buyers in the United States and other countries. His achievements were said to represent not only the triumph of his particular brand of classical styling but also the maturation of the American fashion industry.

Defining the style

By the late 1970s Klein had launched his first menswear collection and had moved away from the crisp, structured look on which he had built his name toward a softer and more sensual style in his womenswear. His creative design team replaced stiff fabrics with fluid materials such as crepe de chine, lightweight cashmere, charmeuse, satin, linen, and layered silks, creating clothes that felt more intimate, relaxed, and suggestive against the body. “To me the contrast between rough fabrics and satin fabrics against a woman’s body was really sexy,” he shared with Vanity Fair. “That’s how I started doing slip dresses in the very beginning. They were under something that was more tailored and strong. It’s the combination that has always intrigued me. The contrast between soft and hard.”

Studio 54 years

In building his brand and design vocabulary, however, Klein spent long days away from home, and his marriage to Centre ended in 1974. In subsequent years Klein became a fixture in the New York City social scene, frequently photographed among Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol, and other celebrities at Studio 54 after it opened in 1977. Klein later spoke candidly about this period, during which he had sexual experiences with both men and women but also struggled with drug addiction.

Calvin Klein Jeans

It was at the celebrated nightclub that Klein also reportedly made a contact at Puritan Fashions Corporation. The dress manufacturer was seeking to break into the jeans market and subsequently negotiated a licensing agreement with the Calvin Klein brand. The deal made the designer label one of the earliest to move into jeans, and the denim line became famous through advertising that courted controversy. Its best-known campaign featured 15-year-old actress Brooke Shields modeling a pair of blue jeans and proclaiming, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”

Calvin Klein Underwear, fragrances, and more advertising

In 1982 the company launched Calvin Klein Underwear, whose advertising—with photographs by Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber featuring models such as actor Mark Wahlberg—also became vehicles for provocative marketing, turning men’s underwear into a designer product and helping position men as sex objects. Through the rest of the decade and into the 1990s, the brand extended this strategy to its fragrances. In 1993 English model Kate Moss became an emblem of the fashion label’s minimalist and sexually charged image when she was photographed by Mario Sorrenti for a series of stripped-down Obsession ads. (Launched in 1985, Obsession was one of the brand’s first successful perfumes.) By the end of the 20th century, the fashion house had become famous not only for its clothes, jeans, underwear, and fragrances but also for advertising campaigns that made stark black-and-white imagery, celebrity, youth, and provocation central to the brand’s identity.

Personal life

Meanwhile, in 1986 Klein wed his assistant of five years, Kelly Rector. The couple was married for 20 years, though they were separated for the last 10. Klein was then linked with model Nicolas Gruber from 2010 to 2012. He has apparently been in a relationship with model and actor Kevin Baker since 2016.

Selling the brand

In 2003 Klein and Schwartz sold the company to Phillips–Van Heusen (later called PVH) in a deal valued at some $430 million with up to $300 million in future royalties. After retiring the following year, Klein maintained a low public profile. In 2017, however, he published Calvin Klein, a survey of his career that included photographs and anecdotes.