50 Fun Facts About Calvin Klein

In which 1985 film is a teenager stranded in 1955 called "Calvin Klein" after the name on his underwear?

Back to the Future has Lorraine assume the brand on Marty McFly's underwear is his name; the French dub changed it to Pierre Cardin, after the French designer.

Which 15-year-old actress starred in Calvin Klein's 1980 jeans adverts, two of them banned in New York?

Brooke Shields drew a flood of complaints, and New York's flagship network stations pulled two of the spots, yet sales of the jeans climbed to two million pairs a month.

Which rapper, later an Oscar-nominated actor, posed in Calvin Klein's 1992 underwear adverts?

Mark Wahlberg was still rapping as Marky Mark, and the campaign grossed $85 million for the company within 12 months.

Which Calvin Klein perfume of 1985, priced at $170 an ounce, became the world's second-best seller?

Obsession was sold with steamy adverts costing more than $17 million in ten months, and a survey ranked them the year's most memorable print ads four years in a row.

Where did Calvin Klein put his name on jeans in the 1970s, helping to start the designer-denim craze?

On the back pocket went the designer's name, and it worked: by 1979 Calvin Klein held one-fifth of the designer-jeans market.

What happened overnight when Calvin Klein advertised its new underwear in 25 New York bus shelters?

Every poster was stolen after thieves shattered the glass of all 25 shelters, and the underwear line went on to be a hit.

In which 1995 comedy does Cher Horowitz wear a barely-there dress credited to Calvin Klein?

Clueless has Cher's father object that the white slip dress looks like underwear, and she defends it by naming Calvin Klein as its designer.

Carolyn Bessette spent seven years at Calvin Klein before marrying which famous American in 1996?

John F. Kennedy Jr. married the former Calvin Klein publicist in Georgia that September; her dress was by Narciso Rodriguez, a friend from the company.

Which British model, recruited at 14 in a New York airport, fronted Calvin Klein adverts in the 1990s?

Kate Moss got her first solo campaign for the company in 1993, and a Boston-area group plastered her adverts with protest stickers over how thin she looked.

Calvin Klein was born in 1942 in which New York City borough, where he grew up sketching and sewing?

The Bronx was home through his school years; by age twelve he was taking weekend life-drawing lessons at the Art Students League.

Which Canadian pop star was unveiled as the new face and body of Calvin Klein in early 2015?

Justin Bieber had already endorsed Adidas and launched a nail-polish line that sold a million bottles in under two months.

Jung Kook, named a Calvin Klein global ambassador in March 2023, sings with which K-pop group?

BTS made its debut in June 2013 with Jung Kook, then 15, as the youngest of its seven members.

Which former Shameless actor became a global Calvin Klein underwear ambassador in January 2024?

Jeremy Allen White was by then the star of The Bear, playing chef Carmy Berzatto after a decade as Lip Gallagher in Shameless.

Which style of men's underwear did Calvin Klein's 1992 adverts make famous?

Boxer briefs were long credited to Calvin Klein menswear chief John Varvatos, who said his team just cut the legs off a pair of long johns.

A Calvin Klein jeans billboard of model Patti Hansen stayed up for four years at which New York landmark?

Times Square carried the shot of Hansen on her hands and knees, the designer label visible on her hip, and it caused a sensation.

Which childhood friend lent Calvin Klein $10,000 in 1968 and became his partner in the company?

Barry Schwartz joined a month later, after the Harlem supermarket he had inherited was gutted in the riots that followed Martin Luther King's assassination.

What did Calvin Klein's company sell when it started out in a New York hotel room in 1968?

Women's coats were the whole business at first, along with two-piece suits; only in 1972 did he switch to mix-and-match sportswear.

Which New York store gave Calvin Klein his big break after an executive stopped at the wrong floor?

Bonwit Teller's vice-president liked the samples he stumbled on, and Klein wheeled the rack uptown himself to win a $50,000 order on the spot.

By 1979 only which socialite's label was outselling Calvin Klein in the designer-jeans market?

Gloria Vanderbilt's tightly fitted jeans carried her embroidered signature and a swan logo, and they were the only designer denim outselling his.

Which later rival designer was raised in the same New York borough and Jewish community as Calvin Klein?

Ralph Lauren was born three years earlier, in 1939, and by the 1970s his label was one of Calvin Klein's two major competitors.

Which Calvin Klein floral scent of 1988 was sold on themes of love, marriage and commitment?

Eternity followed the designer's second marriage, and its softer $18 million campaign helped it gross $35 million in its first year.

Which 1994 Calvin Klein scent became the first unisex fragrance to win wide popularity in the US?

CK One made more than $5 million in its first 10 days and went on to bring in about $90 million a year in the mid-1990s.

Calvin Klein's 1980s fragrances were launched by Minnetonka, a firm better known for which bathroom brand?

Softsoap, the pump-bottle liquid soap, had made Minnetonka's name; the firm sold that brand to Colgate-Palmolive in 1987.

Which entertainment mogul rescued Calvin Klein in 1992 by buying $62 million of the company's debt?

David Geffen, a friend of the designer for many years, bought the debt at a discount and was repaid within a year.

Which American shirtmaker bought Calvin Klein's company in a deal completed in February 2003?

Phillips-Van Heusen, then the largest shirtmaker in the United States, paid about $430 million in cash and stock and kept the founder on as a design consultant.

Which Belgian designer was named Calvin Klein's chief creative officer in 2016 and left after two years?

Raf Simons arrived from Christian Dior, and a few months after his exit the fashion house scrapped its runway collections altogether.

Calvin Klein signed a three-year deal with a foundation for access to which pop artist's archive?

Andy Warhol's foundation opened his archive to the brand's designers, and his artworks soon appeared on its runway dresses, jeans and underwear.

Calvin Klein's runway line was renamed "Calvin Klein 205W39NYC" in 2017 in honour of what?

Its headquarters address is 205 West 39th Street, in Manhattan's Garment District, where the founder and his staff long designed the collection.

Calvin Klein's four-level flagship store opened in 1995 at East 60th Street and which Manhattan street?

Madison Avenue got a vast store nicknamed the ice palace, designed by British architect John Pawson; it closed for good in spring 2019.

Calvin Klein's daughter Marci spent 24 years working on which long-running TV comedy show?

Saturday Night Live hired her in 1989; eleven years earlier, as a child, she had been kidnapped by her babysitter and freed after her father paid the ransom.

In 30 Rock, Calvin Klein appears as himself and offers which actor's character a job as an underwear model?

Jon Hamm played Liz Lemon's boyfriend Drew, who lives in a bubble of special treatment because of his good looks; the designer's daughter was an executive producer.

Calvin Klein's co-founder chaired a New York association for which sport from 2000 to 2004?

Horse racing has been his passion since 1978; the following year he bought Stonewall Farm, a horse farm north of New York City that is among Westchester County's largest private estates.

Calvin Klein studied at which New York design college, which gave him an honorary doctorate in 2003?

Fashion Institute of Technology also counts Norma Kamali and Michael Kors among its former students, though Kors never finished his studies there.

In 1973 Calvin Klein became the youngest winner yet of which prize, nicknamed fashion's Oscars?

Coty Award judges honoured him three years running, yet in 1979 he and Halston announced they would no longer accept the prize.

In 1996 which magazine named Calvin Klein among the 25 most influential Americans?

Time singled him out for his marketing as much as his clothes: the provocative adverts came from his own in-house agency, CRK Advertising.

Calvin Klein's former beach house is in the Pines community of which New York summer resort?

Fire Island was where he hosted friends such as Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell; he sold the house in 1995, but the name stuck.

Which celebrated photographer directed Calvin Klein's 1980 jeans commercials and a 1996 fragrance campaign?

Richard Avedon's 1996 films showed pierced and tattooed young models, and 57 percent of people polled for USA Today said they disliked them.

Which US government body investigated Calvin Klein's 1995 jeans adverts but brought no charges?

Justice Department agents found that no minors had been used in the pictures, but the company had already pulled the campaign, its first such retreat.

Which yoga-wear company sued Calvin Klein in 2012 over three design patents for yoga pants?

Lululemon dropped the suit within months after a private settlement; using patents to protect a clothing design made the case unusual.

Which Keeping Up with the Kardashians star signed with Calvin Klein Jeans in March 2015?

Kendall Jenner's campaigns paid off: a year later the parent company's chief executive credited the adverts with helping to lift its earnings.

Which Puerto Rican star became a global ambassador for Calvin Klein underwear in March 2025?

Bad Bunny's campaign video was set to his own song EoO, and two months later he was on the cover of Vogue Mexico and Latin America.

In 2013 Calvin Klein aired its first commercial during which annual American sporting event?

Super Bowl viewers saw underwear model Matthew Terry, who became an overnight sensation; the spot was directed by Fabien Baron.

Calvin Klein's parent company paid $3 billion in 2010 for which other American designer label?

Tommy Hilfiger cost almost sevenfold what the same buyer had paid for Calvin Klein seven years earlier.

Which photographer shot Calvin Klein's first men's underwear campaign, on Santorini in Greece?

Bruce Weber posed an Olympic athlete against a whitewashed chimney, and American Photographer named the result one of ten pictures that changed America.

Which company paid $376 million for Calvin Klein's cosmetics and fragrance line in 1989?

Unilever bought the line through its Chesebrough-Pond's subsidiary when Minnetonka, the firm behind the perfumes, was sold.

Calvin Klein raised $80 million through financier Michael Milken by issuing which kind of debt?

Junk bonds, placed through Drexel Burnham Lambert, kept its jeans maker Puritan afloat after a loss of $11.3 million in 1984, but left huge repayments.

Calvin Klein married his assistant Kelly Rector in 1986 during a buying trip to which city?

Rome hosted the wedding that September; Kelly later became a well-known society photographer, and the couple separated in 1996.

Tom Hintnaus, Calvin Klein's first men's underwear model, competed at the Olympics in which event?

Pole vault brought him victory at the 1980 US Olympic trials, but the Moscow boycott kept him home; he later competed for Brazil, where he was born.

Which supermodel signed a record-breaking million-dollar Calvin Klein contract in 1989, aged 20?

Christy Turlington fronted one of the brand's fragrance campaigns that year and returned to the same campaign in 2014.

In January 2024 the UK's advertising watchdog banned a Calvin Klein advert featuring which British singer?

FKA Twigs appeared semi-nude in the advert, and two months later the regulator withdrew its finding that the image objectified her, calling its own reasoning flawed.