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Business News/ Topic / Kerala-floods/  What is luxury if everyone can have the same thing: Calvin Klein
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What is luxury if everyone can have the same thing: Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein about what luxury means to him, his remarkable ad campaigns and what his brand has accomplished over the years

Calvin Klein. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/MintPremium
Calvin Klein. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint

American fashion designer Calvin Klein is known best for his clothes, and perhaps even more so for his provocative advertising campaigns. Klein spoke to Fern Mallis, author and creator of the New York Fashion Week, at the Mint Luxury Conference 2016 in Mumbai on Friday, about what luxury means to him, his remarkable ad campaigns and what his brand has accomplished over the years.

Edited excerpts:

What does luxury mean to you?

Luxury to me is the ultimate in quality, in terms of product. Personally, luxury is great space, especially living in New York city. But in product, having the best quality of perfection which you can have is true luxury. For example, the Kelly bag for Hermes was created many years ago for Grace Kelly and you still have to wait several years to get one. But luxury is also cashmere, and you can go to Uniqlo and get a sweater for not very much money or you can go to Hermes, and buy a cashmere sweater for a lot of money! There are differences but it is still luxury.

What we are experiencing is luxury at prices which are much more affordable and luxury which is the best of the best.

Is the word luxury being used too often?

I think we are at a period where the 1% of the world that can afford anything they want are spending again and there is a tremendous emphasis to capture that audience. But the smart retailers, Europeans like Zara, Asians like Uniqlo, are not using the word luxury.

But I can tell you, I know denim, and the denim that Uniqlo uses is a thousand dollars in a designer store on 57th Street. It’s the same denim.

CK the name and the brand is probably one of the most recognized names in the fashion industry and beyond. How do you feel about what you have accomplished?

I feel really good about what our company has accomplished. I spend a lot of time talking to students in universities—in Cambridge, Harvard—I am extremely proud and I never imagined that I could create a global brand before what we call social networking.

And it’s doable. I grew up in a family where my parents always told me, everything is possible. You can do whatever you want and you just have to decide what you want to do and follow that passion. That is what I also tell students and graduates. We design our clothes, distribute it; we created a fragrance company; there are so many things that I can speak to advertising, marketing, design, business and it’s not about the fashion business, it’s any business, it’s doable.

But to become a brand that is globally recognized, I believe you have to have a vision, you have to say something that’s unique, special and different from what everyone else is doing. If you have something to say and have the will and strength to continue to say it over the years, when people try and discourage you from sticking to what you believe, then you can create an image that people can recognize.

That unique look, image and point of view was attributed to the remarkable advertising and marketing you did…

We had created a product and I thought to myself, how do I communicate to the advertising agencies, how do I explain what I have created and what I believe and what we were trying to communicate to people?

So we did all the creative, we chose all the models, the locations, I did the media buying decided what would go on print, on TV… Yes, the imaging and advertising plays a role, but its starts with the product—it must bring value, and has to be something people want, or think they want.

Then you communicate with them by getting their attention, which you can do through magazines, through commercials.

Today it is somewhat different, with social media, you can get millions and millions of people to pay attention, but I think their attention span is for a quarter of a second. And that’s not how you sell products.

Let’s talk about some of your campaigns, such as the legendary ads with Brooke Shields and the men’s underwear ad with Brazilian Olympic pole vaulter Tom Hintnaus, which probably sent more men to the gym or the shrink….

I was driving on Sunset Boulevard, and I see this great looking guy running. I stopped the car, jumped out and introduced myself, and I asked him, what do you do? And he said, I am in school, I am a triathlete. I asked him if he had ever modelled, and he said no, which was great!

We took him to Greece and did this big shoot, with some other people. And what happened, if you saw the picture, the architecture was white and we found part of the house that looked like a phallic symbol, and we placed Tom right in front of that in the underwear.

We had instances of people breaking the glass of the poster at bus shelters to steal the picture of Tom in his underwear. Had we photographed the same young man, in the same underwear, in a scene set in a studio, I would have nothing. But placing him in the right place, with the most gorgeous light you ever saw, against a symbol which was very suggestive. And it worked, because it appealed to women, because women in those days, 80% bought underwear for their men.

Your daughter, who was at university at the time had some issues…

Time magazine asked my daughter how she felt about her father’s name on men’s underwear. So she said, you know, every time I go to bed with someone, I have to see my dad’s name!

The problem with luxury today…

One of the biggest problems of luxury is it used be that if I went to St Tropez I would find things in St Tropez. If you go to Milan you would find Prada. You go to Paris it could be Hermes. Now every city in the world has exactly the same thing. And when we talk about luxury, that doesn’t sound too luxurious to me. It’s losing its specialty and it’s all so that they can have bigger sales.

I was so moved to see the most beautiful women in India, of a certain age, dark skin, white hair, wearing saris in fuchsia, pink and every colour I would dream to be able to use. But you can’t make a fuchsia pant suit for New York City, it doesn’t work. But it worked here. What I noticed was that everyone under 25 was dressing in Westerns. And certainly here in Mumbai. You can’t stop change. But, what then becomes true luxury, if everyone can have the same thing?

You also have also kept all the samples you made for your clothing…

I have 85% of all sample clothes made since 1968. I always thought, when I am not there, it will be a reference. Designers can always refer to the things we did, if they choose to. And if they don’t then I could decide which university or museum could get them. They are only accessible to the Calvin Klein studios.

What are you most proud of… what is the legacy?

I am really proud of what I have managed to accomplish in the world of style. I wish both my parents were here to see, because they encouraged me from the very beginning. And even when I had an opportunity to go into another business, which could have been very big, my dad said to me… and this was the only time I went to him for advice, he said, “I never really understood what you studied in school, but I have a feeling you will be miserable for the rest of your life if you don’t see it through. You have to see it through." And that is the best advice I have got.

It’s a good idea to pay attention to your parents and your family, and as a young person, not think you have all the answers. My parents did not have a lot of education, but they did have a lot of wisdom.

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Published: 28 Mar 2016, 01:40 AM IST
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