Calvin Klein Men's Fashion Brand

Calvin Klein is a global lifestyle brand that exemplifies bold, progressive ideals and a seductive, and often minimal, aesthetic. They seek to thrill and inspire their audience while using provocative imagery and striking designs to ignite the senses. Founded in 1968 by Calvin Klein and his business partner Barry Schwartz, we have built our reputation as a leader in American fashion through our clean aesthetic and innovative designs. In 2003, the company was acquired by PVH Corp., one of the largest apparel companies in the world. Four sentences hold the whole record: a founding partnership, a design reputation, an aesthetic, and a corporate home.

The men's page of that record is the clean aesthetic applied to a man's wardrobe. Minimal is not plainness for its own sake: it is the removal of everything that is not the garment - clean lines, restrained colour and innovative design doing the work that ornament does elsewhere. A researcher reading the Calvin Klein menswear record should therefore judge the clothes the way the brand describes itself, by boldness of idea and seduction of effect rather than by decoration. The provocative imagery the profile names is part of that same method: the advertising ignites the senses, in its phrase, so the clothing itself can stay striking and simple.

From a 1968 Partnership to PVH Corp.

The dates are 1968 and 2003, and they divide the story cleanly. In 1968 Calvin Klein founded the house with Barry Schwartz, his business partner - the designer-plus-partner structure that built the reputation the profile claims, a leader in American fashion through a clean aesthetic and innovative designs. In 2003 PVH Corp. acquired the company, and the buyer is sized carefully: one of the largest apparel companies in the world. That acquisition is also a directory cross-reference, in this page's lists: the PVH Corp. profile in the guide's company names section, where the parent company's own record sits, exactly as the Bass page in the B letter pointed to the same parent for its own later years.

The directory frame around Calvin Klein is the richest in this letter. Beyond the standard Men's Fashion Brands index and its second and third pages, there is a full Calvin Klein designer section of its own: the designer profile, Collections, Dresses, Fall Fashions, Fashion Week, Menswear, News, Profiles, Runway, Spring Fashions and Womenswear pages, all in this page's More to Explore list. That eleven-link cluster is the directory treating Calvin Klein not only as a brand but as a designer name with seasons, shows and coverage - the menswear link among them is the direct companion to this men's profile, and a man researching the brand's men's collections should follow it after this page.

Reading This Calvin Klein Record

Read as a buying guide, the record gives a man the brand's own test: does the garment thrill and inspire, in the profile's words, through a bold, progressive idea executed minimally? Calvin Klein menswear in this telling is bought for the clean aesthetic - the uncluttered shirt, the pared-back tailoring, the seductive restraint - and distrusted when it is merely logoed. The official Calvin Klein men's range is in References. No prices, no collection names and no later creative-director history are recorded.

Calvin Klein, under C in the Men's Fashion Brands directory: a global lifestyle brand founded in 1968 by Calvin Klein and Barry Schwartz, built as a leader in American fashion on a clean aesthetic and innovative designs, bold and progressive in ideal and seductive and often minimal in look, and acquired in 2003 by PVH Corp., one of the largest apparel companies in the world.

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