Shop Calvin Klein
- Men
- Women
- Beauty
- Accessories
- Bags
Calvin Klein
- Shop
- On Sale
Men
Women
Beauty
Accessories
Bags
More about Calvin Klein
It's one of the most recognized fashion brands in the world and-with more than $5 billion in annual sales-also one of the most profitable. Bronx-born Klein started his company in 1968, a coat shop with childhood friend Barry Schwartz. Legend has it that a buyer from the now-defunct high-end department store Bonwit Teller accidentally stumbled into his workroom in 1969 after getting off on the wrong floor; within a week, Klein had his first $50,000 order. By the early seventies, he was designing award-winning womenswear and lingerie collections and he'd made the cover of Vogue. A decade later, the brand became known as much for its pioneering marketing and advertising campaigns as its minimalist fashions: Brooke and her jeans, Kate and her Obsession, Mark and his tightie-whities. With a mix of successes (huge growth, marketing genius, critical acclaim) and failures (rocky start with menswear, near-bankruptcy in the early nineties, a feud with a distributor), the business would relentlessly expand and establish lucrative licensing deals for jeans, underwear, fragrance, home products, and eyewear. Klein sold the company to Phillips-Van Heusen in 2003, and his Brazilian protege, Fra... read more