Calvin klein licensing revenue

Calvin Klein merchandise was so hot that the company could pick and choose among stores that wanted to carry the company's products and blackball those that dared to try to return unsold goods. Klein introduced his first menswear collection in , telling the New York Times Magazine that he approached men's clothing "with the same philosophy as the women's.

They're for Americans who like simple, comfortable but stylish clothes--but with nothing overscale or extreme. The production and sale of most of the men's clothing was licensed to Bidermann Industries. Also in , Calvin Klein introduced his own line of fragrances and a complete makeup collection of 18 beauty and skin-care products that stressed neutral colors to give the face a natural effect.

The fragrance and cosmetics business was sold to Minnetonka, Inc. Calvin Klein jeans, by contrast, were to become the company's biggest hit. The following year, however, his company cut a deal to design the product for Puritan Fashions Corp.

Klein raised the groin in his jeans to accentuate the crotch and pulled the seam up between the buttocks to give the rear more shape. A Times Square billboard of model Patti Hansen on her hands and knees, her derriere arched skyward and the Calvin Klein label on her right hip visible, caused a sensation and remained in place for four years. By , Calvin Klein was second to Gloria Vanderbilt in designer-jeans sales, with one-fifth of the market. A company spokesman observed, "The tighter they are, the better they sell.

In the best-remembered spot, she pronounced, "Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Klein could shrug off the criticism because sales of his jeans were then climbing to two million pairs a month. He added a jeans-inspired collection that included shirts, skirts, and jackets, also licensed to Puritan. In , Calvin Klein entered the underwear business, once again exploiting the allure of youth in provocative poses to push the product.

Photographer Bruce Weber's beefcake ads featured a brawny Olympic pole vaulter in various states of well-endowed undress.

When the company rented space in 25 New York bus shelters to display advertising posters featuring the underwear, all 25 had their glass shattered and posters stolen overnight.

The follow-up was predictable--a line of women's underwear featuring male-style briefs and boxer shorts that retained the fly front. Both campaigns were hits. The men's line was part of the Bidermann license, which lapsed in , while the women's skivvies so outstripped Calvin Klein's own manufacturing capabilities that in this division was sold to Kayser Roth Corp. Calvin Klein continued to design and create advertising for women's underwear, later adding hosiery and sleepwear lines.

The consolidated companies were renamed Calvin Klein Industries. Registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the junk bonds Calvin Klein issued afforded the public a rare look at the finances of the closely held enterprise.

Nevertheless, Calvin Klein Industries had huge payments to make on its big junk-bond debt, and this financial problem seemed to be taking a toll on the designer. One Weber print ad featured two nude men entwined around one female; another, a naked couple with their groins pressed together; a third, three naked women, limbs entangled. A survey ranked the Obsession ads as the most memorable print advertisements of the year for four years in a row.

TV commercials displayed a female model as the object of obsessive love by, in turn, a boy, a young man, an older man, and an older woman. Obsession quickly became the second-best selling fragrance in the world. To complement Obsession, an oriental fragrance, in Calvin Klein introduced a floral scent, dubbed Eternity, which was marketed in perfume, cologne, cologne-spray, and body-cream forms. Also in , Calvin Klein opened its first full-line free-standing store, in a Dallas suburb.

Products included Calvin Klein Sport lines for men and women, women's and men's underwear and sleepwear, hosiery, shoes, outerwear, accessories, cosmetics, and fragrances. Eyewear and sunglasses bearing the designer's name, previously made by Starline Optical Corp. Despite sizable royalty payments from these and other products, Calvin Klein was falling into financial trouble in the new decade. Many younger women who could not afford the designer's flagship Collection line were not buying his clothes at all.

The firm then paid off the Citibank loan by licensing the underwear business to Warnaco Group Inc. Warnaco also won the license for a new venture, men's accessories.

In , a partnership later renamed Designer Holdings Ltd. Designer Holdings was acquired by Warnaco in By , when it opened a four-level, 22,square-foot minimalist-style emporium at Madison Avenue and East 60th Street in Manhattan, Calvin Klein had six stores in the United States. In addition, during and , the company licensed Calvin Klein boutiques to operators in Barcelona, St.

Moritz, Zurich, and Singapore and formed a partnership with four Japanese companies to create in-store shops there and to produce more licensed apparel. The company also had an outlet store in Secaucus, New Jersey. In a poll conducted by Louis Harris for USA Today, only 4 percent of the respondents expressed strong liking for the ads, while 57 percent said they disliked them.

Advertising experts suggested that what was turning off the general public was precisely what was attracting the people who were buying the product, especially teenagers.

Advertisements for Calvin Klein jeans also continued to provoke controversy. Posters featuring a notably skinny model, Kate Moss, were festooned with stickers reading "Feed this woman" by a Boston-area group called Boycott Anorexic Marketing. The company ignored the group but was unable to shrug off the reaction, especially from Christian groups, created by its summer campaign for CK Jeans, featuring models who appeared to be teenagers in states of undress that, according to one writer, "suggested auditions for low-budget porn movies.

People didn't get that it's about modern young people who have an independent spirit and do the things they want to and can't be told or sold. Justice Department investigation ended without charges after federal agents determined that no minors were used in the ads.

The controversial ads did not offend the market for which the campaign was intended. CK Calvin Klein Jeans continued to be one of the strongest sellers among youths.

These lines Also in , a group of parent-led anti-drug groups called for a boycott of Calvin Klein products to protest a new ad campaign that they said glamorized heroin addiction. The magazine and television advertisements in question featured gaunt, glassy-eyed models to promote cKbe. Show detailed source information? Register for free Already a member? Log in. More information. Other statistics on the topic. Profit from additional features with an Employee Account. Please create an employee account to be able to mark statistics as favorites.

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