The firm’s design chief has staked a claim on its place at the heart of Americana with Fonz boots, flag colours and prairie quilting
Raf Simons’ mission at New York fashion week is simple: make Calvin Klein great again. In the cultural battlefield that is the contemporary US, a sleeping giant just woke up to stake a claim for what Americana looks like now.
Calvin Klein is an American icon. Back in the glory days of the USA that Bruce Springsteen sang about in 1984, the name transcended jeans and underwear to become a byword for youth, sex and style. It morphed into part of the vernacular, from Brooke Shields’s infamous “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” ad to a cameo role in Back to the Future. The newly appointed Belgian designer Simons, fresh from success at Christian Dior and Jil Sander, intends to put Calvin Klein back at the heart of Americana.
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