Chloe Mel (2:23)

Oh, my God.

Choma Nadi Cioma (2:24)

Swoon.

Chloe Mel (2:25)

Oh, my God. Choma. Today, this amazing bakery, Hannie's Bakery, made us a Rosalia cake with the Rosalia cover on it. The most delicious carrot cake. We were so excited. Yeah, it's been really fun. I don't know what your experience was like with this, but we're so insistent, I feel now in media on print not being the dominant platform because we are across so much and we are constantly producing content in every way. But there is something so special about this first print issue, and I love the thicker paper. And anyway, our first issues of the Rosalia spring cover just landed in the office and at Casa magazine.

Choma Nadi Cioma (3:05)

But can you bring. I'll get one.

Chloe Mel (3:06)

No, I'll bring you. I'm gonna bring a few.

Choma Nadi Cioma (3:08)

Not packing, like a million girl. Worry about the wardrobe first.

Chloe Mel (3:12)

Oh, Choma. It's very hard to pack for these trips.

Choma Nadi Cioma (3:15)

I don't know how you do it. I like going back to London to

Chloe Mel (3:18)

restock weeks of, like, having to look presentable. I packed two suitcases.

Choma Nadi Cioma (3:25)

I think that's totally fair.

Chloe Mel (3:26)

And I tried to do it that, like, one I didn't have to open until Paris. Do you know what I mean? So I could, like, put one in a corner and just open one for Milan. I don't know that that will. I feel like that might have been me trying to, you know, over plan.

Choma Nadi Cioma (3:39)

It's wild in Milan, too. You only need very light Jack.

Chloe Mel (3:43)

So, yeah, working on that. And no, we had such a cute. I love Casa magazines along with everyone else, and we did such a cute activation with them. We had these little mini libraries made little sort of. They look like mailboxes with free books that were all books that were referenced somehow throughout the spring issue from, like, Jonathan Anderson talks about Ulysses and making that his, like, first Dior tote. And Rosalia talks about how Ursula K. Le Guin inspired her album. And we featured John Lithgow for the Roald Dahl play Giant. So we did the bfg. And so it was so cute to see people taking these little books as sort of the Vogue Book Club extended. So that was. I did that this morning, and that was really fun.

Choma Nadi Cioma (4:30)

Oh, I love that.

Chloe Mel (4:31)

Choma tell.

Choma Nadi Cioma (4:32)

Give. Give us our.

Chloe Mel (4:33)

Give us your, like, three highlights. The Vogue Cafe looked so fun. The BAFTA's party looked fabulous. As you know, I'm obsessed with the Jenga.

Choma Nadi Cioma (4:41)

Yes. So the Vogue Cafe was super fun. And then I got to do a really fab talk with Paloma, who is.

Chloe Mel (4:50)

She's the best.

Choma Nadi Cioma (4:50)

She's the absolute best. I didn't realize that she's actually born in the uk.

Chloe Mel (4:55)

Oh.

Choma Nadi Cioma (4:56)

Because I always knew that there was, like, a connection to the UK and to London, but, like, she has a British passport, so it was really fun talking to her about Everything that she's. That she's up to at the moment about her love of, of shopping and archive fashion and dressing herself and wellness and what she thinks of fashion right now. So, you know, once you get her talking, she's such a light and is and is so has a great sense of like where we are now and bigger picture and like micro and macro.

Chloe Mel (5:29)

I think I really, I totally agree. I think it's so. It's always such a treat to talk to her. And I have to say I remember when we first interviewed her for the podcast and she explained to me the concept of an everything shower, which is apparently a TikTok trend. And now whenever I'm in the shower washing my hair and shaving my legs, I'm like, everything shower. Learned it from Paloma.

Choma Nadi Cioma (5:52)

She really is the absolute best. And then on Sunday night, we took over Simpsons, which is this very historic venue in London that has been closed for several years that has this history of being actually a chess club. And it was fabulous. We did it post the bafta. So it was our annual fashion and film party with gq. So Adam and I co hosted and

Chloe Mel (6:15)

we had some Adam Bell of the ball.

Choma Nadi Cioma (6:18)

I know we definitely had some fabulous co hosts. We had Michael B. Jordan, Tiana Taylor, Riz Ahmed, Ethan Hawk, Chase, Infinity, Odessa, my new like obsession or new girl

Chloe Mel (6:32)

crush, you know who's my boy crush? Riz Ahmed. I love.

Choma Nadi Cioma (6:38)

Yeah, Jessie Buckley was also another.

Chloe Mel (6:40)

Oh, yeah, we love Jessie.

Choma Nadi Cioma (6:42)

She was just flowing like she's had just the best award season.

Chloe Mel (6:46)

So I loved her blue velvet Chanel.

Choma Nadi Cioma (6:49)

I know that would be like a

Chloe Mel (6:50)

dream red carpet dress for me.

Choma Nadi Cioma (6:52)

It really, really was so it was, it was just, it was really fun. And then managed to squeeze in the Burberry show before I left. And Connor Ives was also on Monday. So it's been a busy, busy weekend. Simone Rochel was fabulous. Erdem celebrated his 20th anniversary and it was just really fab show.

Chloe Mel (7:15)

That show looked so beautiful.

Choma Nadi Cioma (7:16)

It really was, I mean, incredible embellished barber coats and some of those gorgeous, very dramatic lace dresses. You know, it was Erdem at his best.

Chloe Mel (7:28)

No one does romantic quite like Erdem.

Calvin Klein (7:31)

No, no.

Choma Nadi Cioma (7:32)

And this, this season he had Marie, Emily save a style, the show, different energy. And she's, she's known for working with. She's a longtime collaborator of Nicholas Garcia at Louis Vuitton and she has a very exacting eye. So it was interesting to see her twist on Adem. But yeah, it was a really fab show.

Chloe Mel (7:52)

I also, I love the Burberry show and how Daniel really seems to be taking the idea that Burberry is, at its core, an outerwear brand and completely sort of turning that on its head and really making that feel like evening wear, sort of everything wear.

Choma Nadi Cioma (8:11)

And I loved so many of those great leather jackets and trenches. And I got sat next to Ebereche Eze, who is a footballer, and he's like a hero in the naughty household. So I got a lot of brownie points. Nobody really mad to them this weekend, except for that. So my. My dad, my brother, My brother and my nephews were very jealous that I got to get that moment with him. He's, like, a huge deal in football.

Chloe Mel (8:41)

Wow.

Choma Nadi Cioma (8:42)

And I said, Skepta, who's always a fun time, and it's just like, oh,

Chloe Mel (8:45)

yeah, you love Skepta.

Choma Nadi Cioma (8:46)

Yeah, he's. He's just like. He's. He's so fab. Like, he's. He's great, and he's always fun to talk to and really, really loves fashion in a way that's. That feels like, you know, like it's good.

Chloe Mel (8:59)

Yeah.

Choma Nadi Cioma (9:00)

Love him.

Chloe Mel (9:01)

All right, Choma, we are in for a treat today. I feel like I don't know what's happening in your neck of the woods, but everyone in New York is obsessed with Love Story, the Carolyn Bessette Kennedy JFK Jr show, and particularly everyone is obsessed with this 90s moment. Working at Calvin Klein before cell phones. The. What happened in that office, what it was like to work there? Apparently there's all these tiktoks of people talking about what it was like when they worked there 30 years ago. And so I'm very excited.

Choma Nadi Cioma (9:36)

I feel like my Instagram has been totally flooded. There was one. One video that came across my Instagram where. Where someone who worked at Calvin Klein was saying that they could only have a certain type of flower, like, in

Chloe Mel (9:48)

the office, you'd have to sweep your. Your desk clear at the end of the day. Apparently, like, you would have to do the arm test, where if you could drag your arm across the desk, there was nothing on it, which I'd like to do to some people's desks in our office. Margo and Buba. But yes, it's really been interesting to. To watch that and see everyone's fascination with everything from that period. So I'm really excited for everyone to listen to our episode interviewing Calvin Klein. Nicole did this amazing deep dive conversation with him. He came to the Vogue offices. They talked about his very first job at Women's Wear Daily. How he's just obsessed with In Pursuit of Perfection. And he talks about what it was like in the 90s when the brand was really at the peak and center of the cultural conversation and the zeitgeist. And so I think that within the context of this renewed love story, fascination with that moment, it'll be really fun for everyone to listen to.

Choma Nadi Cioma (10:54)

Oh, I can't wait to hear that.

Chloe Mel (10:59)

The Run through will be back with Mr. Calvin Klein.

Calvin Klein (11:08)

If you're looking for some of the sharpest takes around on film and television, I hope you'll tune in to Critics at Large from the New Yorker.

Chloe Mel (11:16)

So over here, we like talking about

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (11:17)

what we loved, but also, crucially, what we hated about what we're watching. But even more, we like making sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here.

Calvin Klein (11:27)

So just join us, okay. As we make our way from Eddington to Moby Dick, from Ted Lasso to the rise in Therapy Speak from the Pit to Luigi Mangione, you have no

Chloe Mel (11:37)

clue where we're gonna end up. It's Critics at Large from the New Yorker every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts,

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (11:51)

It is such a thrill to have you on the Run Through.

Calvin Klein (11:54)

Thank you. It's really fun for me to do this kind of thing early in the morning, but exciting to be able to talk about my work, everything that I've done and how we did it and, you know, and so you go ahead and just ask me anything you feel

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (12:15)

like I'm going to. I was at the show in February, the Calvin Klein Show. It was Veronica Leone's debut, and you were in the front row, and it was the first time that many of us had seen you since you retired. And I wanted to hear from you what it felt like to be back in 205 W. 39th St. Well,

Calvin Klein (12:39)

not strange at all. It was interesting. I did go to a couple of shows years ago when I first stepped away, but I never sat in the front row. I always stood watching.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (12:57)

In the back?

Choma Nadi Cioma (12:58)

Yes.

Calvin Klein (12:59)

I mean, not in the back. I stood out front where the photographers would be. So it was a little odd sitting there and sitting next to Anna and Kelly, Kevin and everyone, and exciting to see clothes that were in the feeling of what the brand stands for, but yet taken another step in a newer direction. So that was. I couldn't wait to see the next outfit come out. So I was totally into the show and into Veronica's work. She's very good, she's very talented, and I'm sure it's Going to do extremely well.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (13:48)

Well, we will see in September she'll be back with a second collection, which I always say is sometimes harder to do than the first, you know, to follow up.

Calvin Klein (13:58)

I always thought each one was hard to do because you're always, you know, in the fashion business, things change so quickly that you don't think of what you already did, or at least I didn't. I always thought about what was next or what was right now. And that's what clothes are all about. It changes so quickly. I tended not to look back. My attitude was always, what can we do next that we haven't done? Or what can we do better? And this is the advice that I give students when I speak at schools, which I do quite a bit. I try to encourage people to take risk and take a chance and believe in yourself, have confidence. Cause you need all of that. You need all of that to keep doing whatever it is you do.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (15:02)

I find fashion is always looking back, though. How do you balance that, the need to drive forward with fashion's sort of obsession with the past?

Calvin Klein (15:15)

I was not. I was obsessed, but not with the past. I was obsessed with all kinds of things, but. But I did not look back. There were always influences, but mostly of one period, the 30s, that kind of lingerie dressing. But the collections weren't retrospective, not at all, because we kept thinking of. I thought about the modern woman and what she needs. And the idea of reproducing clothes that reminded me of a particular decade just seemed really old fashioned and limiting in terms of who's going to wear the clothes. And I really always thought about the American woman thinking she's ahead of so many women around the world. Well, I was wrong because what we did here was successful all over the world. Times had changed and there was a freedom that women experienced when I started working. And so I was very fortunate to be designing at a time and starting a business at a time when it opened up for American designers.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (16:50)

Let's go back a little bit earlier to your American childhood. You grew up in the Bronx. Did you know from a very young age that you were interested in fashion and clothes?

Calvin Klein (17:01)

Yes, I knew. I don't know how I knew. You know, I. But possibly because my mother was very interested in clothes. She spent all my dad's money on clothes. She was really good about that. My grandmother made clothes for people. She would do special things for people. She had a little shop and I was very close to my grandmother. So I was around the idea of, of fashion, of sewing, of garment construction, From a very early age and as long as I can remember, I was always interested.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (17:50)

And you started sketching quite, quite young, right?

Calvin Klein (17:53)

I was an art student, yes, very young. I mean, and I went to a school that was very progressive public school in the neighborhood. And my parents encouraged me always to do whatever made me happy, made me feel good and pursue what I was interested in. They never got in the way.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (18:25)

Talk about the outside influences on you. I've heard or heard you say that James Dean was an icon. What were the movies you were watching? What were the magazines you were looking at that was sort of shaping your early vision of what was cool?

Calvin Klein (18:42)

I was reading newspapers. I was reading newspapers more than I was looking at magazines. And there were iconic people, James Dean being one of them. And in film and at that time, in the 50s and 60s, we had a wonderful period in film and wonderful period for people like Rock Hudson, James Dean, I mean, there's so many of them and the way they dressed, but often the way they dressed in films. So costume designers had an influence. We were very close to what was happening in Hollywood, as was the world seemed to look to movie stars and Hollywood. And even though there wasn't this Hollywood glamour that I would associate my work with, I would always think about New York.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (19:56)

So you were very self directed. You went to high school and then you went to FIT to study design, is that correct?

Calvin Klein (20:04)

I did. I studied design in high school too. I went to a school that's in New York, it's called Art and Design. And that's where I began studying fashion. Actually, New York's a wonderful place to grow up. I know so many people who have come here, but being born here, you are immersed in a language and a culture that exists nowhere else. And even in schools we started thinking about the future very early on.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (20:50)

What do they say about New York? That once you live here, everywhere else is. It's a joke, it's not serious. Compared to New York?

Calvin Klein (21:00)

No, I don't know about that. But I always love coming back and I've traveled a lot, mostly for work. But this city was a wonderful place to come back to. And for me, because like the work we did, it changed all the time. And I notice it now. There's building everywhere. It's constantly getting better as the city gets older.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (21:35)

So at fit you took some time off. You worked at Women's Wear Daily.

Calvin Klein (21:39)

I did.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (21:39)

You were a page boy, a copy boy. What does a copy boy do?

Calvin Klein (21:45)

Page boy I think is in the theater. Copy boy delivers the mail. It's as simple as that. But you're surrounded by people in the business you want to be in, so it's just. You just soak it up. It was a wonderful experience. I mean, I worked with at a time when they were really exciting people. John Fairchild, who was the son of the man who started Fairchild Publications, which owned at that time, Women's Wear Daily. John was a real influence. He was. People wanted to know what he was interested in, what restaurants he went to for lunch, where he would go on vacation. Women's Wear Daily, while it's just a trade newspaper, had a lot of influence on very sophisticated people in this country.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (22:58)

It's where I got my start in fashion. I was Etta froio's assistant, and I remember my early days in fashion and feeling it was the most glamorous place in the world because the W magazine staff was right, you know, smashed up with us on that newsroom on 34th Street. And I remember very well we used to call you the big Three. You, Ralph and Donna.

Calvin Klein (23:26)

Donna, yeah. That was a fun place to work. And I worked there when Etta was there, and she was there forever. And she was wonderful, Absolutely wonderful. Then I went back to school, took a really nice break, one of the few breaks ever, and back to school, and then started working on 7th Avenue. It was interesting because in my time, a lot of people that I went to school with wanted to work in Paris. That was the thing, to live in Paris, to work in Paris, which, oddly enough, never interested me. I like going there. I love visiting. I have great admiration and always have for what French designers did and do today. But I was influenced by American women, and it seemed to me this was the place to be.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (24:44)

I've heard you say that Claire McCardell, an American designer who was active after World War II, was an early inspiration on you.

Calvin Klein (24:53)

Well, what she. Her work was sportswear, which was new because out of Europe there were dresses, coats. It was more grown up clothing. Sportswear was kind of an American thing. It was more relaxed, casual clothes for women who lived a certain way. In design school in Europe, you learn to design. Back then for women. Above the table, it was called, because women sat and had lunch or dinner, didn't do much else. And the design was noticed from above the table.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (25:47)

I think we call those going out tops now. Oh, really?

Calvin Klein (25:50)

Well, in New York, there were women who lunched, but the women who really impressed me and influenced me were the ones who were busy working. Donna Karan made her whole career on that. The working woman thing. And I think American designers were influenced by American women and still are.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (26:24)

So let's talk about that early collection of yours. You have a day job on 7th Avenue, as you said. Maybe you didn't like it that much. You really had an itch to try something of your own. And you created this collection of samples of coats and dresses, I believe.

Calvin Klein (26:41)

Yes.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (26:42)

And there is a story that Bonwit Teller's Mildred Custon was drawn to it by somebody else at that department store. And she sort of went crazy for it. She said what impressed me most was the purity of his line and the simplicity of his design. So take us back to 1968. What was different about what you were doing than other things on 7th Avenue?

Calvin Klein (27:12)

I not sure what was different. I could tell you later on, as I expanded into fragrance and other businesses, I would look at what the whole market was doing. But in the very beginning, I just had a desire to do my own thing. And the only way I could do it was befriending a pattern maker who, when I gave him the sketch, he would drape fabric and make a pattern from that. From that pattern, we made a sample. I had a sample tailor who lived in Brooklyn, and I worked with him one time, and I told him I was going to do this, would he make my samples? He said yes. And every night he would go to his sewing machine in his daughter's bedroom, and he'd be sewing up the samples. I had a cutter who cut the sample for him to sew. And he lived in Queens, and I used to go from Queens to Long island to Manhattan, all over the place, and he lived in Queens, and he would cut the fabric on his kitchen table in Queens. Finally, I ended up with the samples. And I told two stories that I was going to do this while I was on a job, but it wasn't anything that I thought competed with the people I was working for at the time. But maybe it was not the most honest thing to do. So the two buyers promised that they would see the work and we would see what happens from there. And I took a little room, a showroom, not much bigger than this little studio space in a Hotel on 7th Avenue. And to keep the clothes there and show to whoever wanted to see the clothes. The room was opposite the elevator.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (29:29)

Convenient.

Calvin Klein (29:30)

And purely by accident, the elevator door opens. A man steps out and into my showroom and introduces himself. My name is Donald o', Brien, and I'm the general merchandise manager of Bonwit Teller. And I thought, well, what a nice surprise. I showed him my few samples. And this was on, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday. He said, I will have the buyer come down and see the close on Thursday. He says, on Friday you will have been discovered by Mildred Custon, the president of Bonweteller. And that's exactly what happened. I was afraid of creasing the clothes. So I got a rack, and I wheeled the rack up from 7th Avenue and 37th street to 5th Avenue and 56th or 7th Street. One of the wheels broke. I mean, everything that could happen, happened. And sure enough, I get to Bonwitz, whisked up to her office, and then, so help me, every word of this is exactly the way it happened. On the phone they said, Ms. Custins on her way up. And so she said, hello. She sat behind her desk. I presented everything to her and I told her the prices. She said, never a smile. She said, Mr. Klein, I will pay you such and such, which was double the cost of what I was asking for. She says, just make the clothes look like this, and I want them exclusive. I said, I can't do that.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (31:34)

Yes. Where did you get the nerve to say no,

Calvin Klein (31:38)

it was the right thing? I gave my word. It didn't occur to me that it required nerve. It just seemed like this is the right thing to do. And I knew she would understand, and she did. She didn't like it, but she did. And then afterward, I said to Dawn o', Brien, I said, well, she wasn't exactly very friendly. He said, well, she didn't have her hair done yet. It's early. She was a great supporter. In those days, stores really supported and backed new designers. I think things shifted, and the stores wanted the people who designed the clothes to pay for the advertising, to pay for the space they got in the store. In my time, they gave it to us. They were thrilled to be able to present something new or different. And they supported design. And then she gave me I don't know how many Sunday Times ads, which was a huge, big deal that first year, but we worked together so well. I've always believed that this is a woman's business. Women buy the clothes, they wear the clothes, and they understand how to run the business, whether it be the retail business or manufacturing, making clothes. And that day, Mildred Custin, as well as other presidents of stores, women just did great.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (33:30)

And from the beginning, the aesthetic was already taking shape. There was a sense of streamlinedness. I read an article that quoted you, and you called them architectural and bulletproof. You said, I thought American women needed to be more streamlined. They Moved faster. They were working, they were raising kids. It was a time when the rules were changing. And it sounds like the clothes that you were making responded to that.

Calvin Klein (34:02)

The idea of bulletproof, the fabrics were. They were strong, they were stiff. It was a period when they were architectural. And they would stand up sometimes by themselves, especially some of the coats. And I always had a feeling for tailored clothes anyway, because they were streamlined. And if you'd start decorating tailored clothes. Something weird about that. And I'm with you.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (34:37)

I hate a superfluous sequin.

Calvin Klein (34:39)

Yeah. But the idea of them being modern is the absence of decoration. It's the. If the design is good and the shape is good and the silhouette, it doesn't need a lot of extra stuff to make a person feel better. So I've just always believed in stripping it.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (35:04)

Well, as you're saying here, I read something recently that said that you weren't trying to please Vogue magazine. I was more interested in the client. But, of course, Vogue recognized you right away. In fact, I think it was just a year later that you had your first. It's 1969, when you had your first Vogue cover. Do you remember what that meant to you at the time?

Calvin Klein (35:30)

Well, the editor at that time, not the editor in chief, that was Diana Vreeland, but my editor was the Baron Nicholas de Ganzberg. He influenced Bill Blass a lot and me, and we became great friends. And I would always preview what I was doing for Nikki. And then sometimes he would say, now tell me what's going on in your life. That's not right. He said, I don't like what I'm seeing. I mean, he would tell me.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (36:08)

This is honest.

Calvin Klein (36:09)

Oh, totally. He would tell me. I mean, it was a total different time. And interesting how. I mean, Cy Newhouse was there all the time, but it was just a change in the way business was done that affected the fashion world as well as every other part of the business world. And Nikki was a great, wonderful influence on my work, my life. We had a deal every time we went to a restaurant, and he introduced me to the best. We'd go to La Grenouille for lunch. And the deal was, the first time we go, Vogue pays. After that, I pay. But he had a great sense of humor. Everything was fun for him. But what a talented man.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (37:18)

We should talk about another man who was very influential in your career, and that's your partner, Barry Schwartz. Barry and you were friends from a really young age, and you decided to go into business together. You're in your 20s.

Calvin Klein (37:33)

We always had a dream when we were children of having a pet store together. We were going to go into the pet business. Well, we touched it with furs, but that was about it. An unfortunate thing happened. Barry was in the military. He worked with his father, and his father was killed in his store.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (38:02)

He was a grocery store owner, right?

Calvin Klein (38:04)

Yes. Both families were in the grocery business, food business. And so he came out of the military, and he just said to me, what do you want to do? I had just started maybe my first job, and I said, I'm doing what I want to do. The only difference is I want to start my own company. And he said, well, I have some money. And we started making those samples, and he started paying for them. So the business partnership began right from day one with the company that we owned till not long ago, actually. He never thought he'd really be in it. He thought he would invest in it. But then he came to spend time after his father no longer had the business. He spent time with me, and he grew into it, and we had this friendship and partnership forever.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (39:10)

It's so interesting that both you and Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan are all New Yorkers by birth and by childhood. In fact, you and Ralph Lauren lived pretty close to each other in the Bronx.

Calvin Klein (39:26)

I remember seeing him when I was in school because he was a bit older than me, and he always dressed funny. I mean, he dressed the part that he played all these years and still does. Yeah, I was dressing like James Dean.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (39:47)

What is it about the crucible of New York that turned you all into these hugely influential American designers, but also global designers? What was in the water?

Calvin Klein (40:00)

You know, you should ask my daughter that. She's the one who said, because there aren't too many young Donna, Ralph, or Calvins coming up. And it's something about New York. It's something about being competitive, it's something about being Jewish, all of those aspects and talent. But you have to have confidence.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (40:31)

Well, your trajectories really do align with what you were talking about before the emergence of sportswear. And I think that for young people today who live in leggings and jog bras, they don't really understand how big a deal sportswear was. This idea that. That you don't need to be corseted or buttoned up, that there was this new looseness that you. You really represented. Well, as the 70s came, came along,

Calvin Klein (41:02)

you know, you go back to Chanel. She understood how to. How to let women be comfortable in what they were wearing. And, you know, It's. It's interesting for me because after I stopped working in the business, I started making my clothes in London. But actually, I was making clothes in London for myself earlier in the 70s, and today I'm making clothes for myself in Naples. Naples. This jacket is from Naples, Italy. Italy, yes. It's so soft and so comfortable. The English jacket is bulletproof. It's like wearing iron. It's stiff, it doesn't move. You know, it's uncomfortable to wear, but it looks kind of great. So given the choice, men still dress comfortably, but they dress up too. Women, I think, when they had the choice, they wanted to be comfortable. Whether it was day, night, whatever, sportswear, tailored clothes, it all. It has to feel good.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (42:26)

I was digging through the Vogue archive and found this quote. It said, if you were around 100 years from now and wanted. This is from 1975, by the way. If you were around 100 years from now and wanted a definitive picture of the American look in 1975, you'd study Calvin Klein. So it's not 100 years later, but it's 50 years later. And it's true. Calvin Klein in American fashion, hand in hand.

Calvin Klein (42:54)

Well, it's interesting because I don't know if that was from. We had six or seven models in one series, which was kind of great. And we were getting a lot of publicity at that time. But I rarely do what we're doing right now. I don't sit and talk about how I did whatever we managed to do. I just do it. And so hearing quotes back 50 years ago, it's, like, wild. I mean, it's kind of incredible. But when I look back, as much as things change, a lot doesn't change. And I get that from people who are still in the fashion business who will tell me they just came back from Paris or Milan, and this you used to do and that you used to do. And there's a certain amount of. They've become almost classics, you know, and that's great.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (44:05)

Well, here's a classic. The Calvin Klein logo, T. But somebody had to come up with it. And I was reading. Jeffrey Banks, who worked for you, told a story that it was the early 70s and there was a show and they put your name, your logo on T shirts, and the women who were sort of seating people at the fashion show wore them. Is that how you remember the first Calvin Klein T shirt?

Calvin Klein (44:34)

No, it isn't.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (44:36)

No. Okay.

Calvin Klein (44:36)

But I love hearing. Jeffrey would know. And it sounds very plausible that we would have done something like that. But I've Forgotten how that happened.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (44:50)

I mean, we take it for granted now, the idea that brands put logos on T shirts, but somebody did it first.

Calvin Klein (44:55)

Well, I always liked the idea that of having the name associated with products that are not expensive. I mean, that's why I started doing jeans, because I loved them. I used to live in them myself. And I liked the idea that they were not that expensive. And so we could say something to that woman. Well, it turns out every woman was interested in denim and T shirts.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (45:32)

And it's the mid-70s, 1976, and the jeans came around at the right moment. It was the dawn of the disco era. Everybody was wearing a little polo shirt and a tight pair of Calvin Klein jeans.

Calvin Klein (45:49)

I think there's a certain amount of luck involved because the timing, although you get when you're in the fashion world, you're very aware of the timing of what's in the air, of what's trending, so it's not such a great surprise. But then often it takes just one designer in fashion to start something, and then everyone. That happened with underwear, too.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (46:20)

Before we get to underwear, which I definitely want to talk about, let's talk about the jeans advertising, because that shaped people's perceptions of the actual garments, but also the brand. You have said that the only way to sell is by not focusing on the product.

Calvin Klein (46:39)

That wouldn't be the only way to sell. It's one way to sell. You don't have to focus on the garment itself. But we knew exactly what we were doing with Brooke.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (46:54)

This is Brooke Shields in the famous Calvin Klein jeans ads.

Calvin Klein (46:58)

Yeah. I mean, that started. It always started with the writing. And that's where Dun Arbus came in, and Dick Avedon being the director, and Dick and Dune and I would sit and we would discuss who should be the voice, what the look should be, the clothes that work with the denim. I mean, every detail was mapped out, and we knew everything we were doing. What we didn't know was what the reaction would be to what we were doing, because we just thought, it's fun. This is cool, it's fun, it's young. And it turned out to create quite a commotion back in those days.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (47:53)

Well, it worked on me. I've told this story on the podcast before, but I was so obsessed with Brooke Shields that I wrote her a fan letter, and I got, like, a stamped postcard in return. So those advertisements are definitely seared. Seared in my brain.

Calvin Klein (48:12)

Yeah. And the writing had so much to do with it. You know, when she said, you know, what comes between me and my Calvins, nothing. People got crazy. They just really got crazy. And it sold denim like mad. Because that created, you know, the image that we wanted for the denim at that time of a little bad. Your parents wouldn't like it. And when the imaging is right and the design is right, you deliver on time. There's so many different reasons for success, real success. Everything has to be right because you really can't get away with much. And Brooke, I run into her all the time. She says she's still remembered more for those commercials than anything else she's done, which to me is a riot. But that marketing, that part was always fun. I always thought I could do that. I mean, I knew that. Why go to Madison Avenue to some stranger? Which I did occasionally, but then I would find everything wrong with what they showed me.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (49:41)

You basically built an ad agency I had. In your own company?

Calvin Klein (49:45)

Oh, for sure. CRK was my own ad agent. And we placed the ads. I used to watch TV. TV just to decide where to advertise the 11 o' clock news. I mean, I was obsessed with that. And I did chose all the space on air and in print for fragrance, for denim, for underwear.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (50:17)

Before we get to fragrance and underwear, you and Brooke Shields were often seen at Studio 54 together. Can you paint a picture of those times? It's another. Another aspect of the past that sort of, you know, is iconic to those of us and legendary to those of us who never. Who never described it. What made Studio 54 so much fun?

Calvin Klein (50:40)

I think there are certain cities in the world at certain times. Berlin maybe in the 1920s, Paris in the 30s. That became the place to be New York in the 70s. I mean, you couldn't beat being here. I used to be at Studio 54 a lot, and they were my buddies, Steve and Ian. People would come off the plane and go to Studio 54, not check into the hotel. I mean, crazy stuff. It was a period of freedom, every kind of freedom. And it's never really been the same again.

Chloe Mel (51:26)

The Run through will be back with Mr. Calvin Klein.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (51:35)

Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, senior awards correspondent

Choma Nadi Cioma (51:38)

at Vanity Fair and co host of Little Gold Men.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (51:41)

Oscar season is upon us.

Choma Nadi Cioma (51:43)

Little Gold Men takes you behind the scenes of the race for the biggest prize in Hollywood.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (51:48)

There's 100 wrestlers in the room, but only one can be Oscar nominated.

Choma Nadi Cioma (51:55)

Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts. Foreign.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (52:16)

Let's talk about the magic of fragrance making you. You had many hits. I remember wearing Obsession obsessively myself. Why is it important for a designer to get into the fragrance business? And what did you want to do that that nobody else was doing at that time?

Calvin Klein (52:38)

I don't know what anyone else did. I mean, I know the fragrances that were out there at that time, what the bottle looked like, what the packaging looked like, and what the scent was. But you wanted to be in the fragrance world because in those days, a woman bought a fragrance and she attached her identity to the fragrance, so she wore that same fragrance, and it would sell over and over for decades. That stopped. And we and other American designers maybe stopped it because we would come out with new fragrances all the time, giving women a choice and saying, no, you don't have to identify just with one. There are many. And these are all ways of increasing volume, of increasing the fragrance business. And it worked. I mean, it worked whatever we did. And we created some controversy that was a part of it. I would do things that other people. I remember coming up with ideas for advertising, and I would tell the photographer, and one of them said, you would really do that? Would you? And, you know, yeah, I took chances.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (54:12)

So I think what you might be talking about, the obsession ads in print, there were nude bodies, and you couldn't really tell whose arm, you know, multiple people's bodies. And there was a certain ambiguity to what was going on.

Calvin Klein (54:30)

Well, there was that, but that's not what I was talking about.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (54:33)

Oh, what were you talking about?

Calvin Klein (54:34)

I was thinking of denim. We were advertising denim, and I was presented with a campaign idea that I had done 10 years earlier, and I thought, we're not going to do that. And I just remember looking around the room, and I said, what about that? And that's where the photographer said, would you really do that? And I said, well, I think so. And it was provocative imaging for denim. But denim can be provocative.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (55:24)

Is this the ck?

Calvin Klein (55:26)

I'm not going to go any further then.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (55:28)

Okay, I won't press you. Well, your advertisements turned certain models into household names, of course. There was Christy Turlington with the Eternity fragrance, and later Kate Moss with CK and CK1. Talk about your eye for models.

Calvin Klein (55:58)

I like to think I have an eye for beauty, and that could be female or male. I used to find people driving along Sunset Boulevard, and I would stop the car and introduce myself, and I could just spot them. Anna used to. Anna Winter would call me, and she said, have you seen anyone new lately that we should know about? Yeah, I could tell that was easy. I get an emotional reaction, and that's editing film, you know, it was easy to edit Dick Avedon because Dick would present you with two or three images and they'd say, that's it. Bruce Weber would be hundreds of images, and we'd stay up all night editing. And every image looked like every other one, too. So it was quite a job editing. But I would edit, and I could feel it. It's purely emotional.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (57:12)

You were reunited with Christy and Kate at the show.

Calvin Klein (57:16)

So sweet. Yeah, that was lovely. Great that they were able to get them to come.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (57:28)

Bruce Weber said he was talking about your work, and he said Calvin's pictures were always about skin. Do you agree with?

Calvin Klein (57:40)

Well, I never thought about it like that, but I think there was. I wanted to have a certain sensuality to the. Whether they were wearing warm weather clothing or nothing, or resort bikini, they should be sensual photographs. And skin is a part of that.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (58:11)

That was part of the reason why the underwear and the underwear campaigns became such a phenomenon. Right. Like at the time, underwear wasn't necessarily sold with sensual ads. That was one of your innovations. There was something sort of clinical about it, or, you know, the. The bra is there to hold your breasts up. It's not there to seduce.

Choma Nadi Cioma (58:36)

I don't know.

Calvin Klein (58:36)

It was different for women and different for men. The advertising for men's underwear was more sensual than men's underwear had been before, certainly. And for women, I think it was breakthrough. We just. Someone sent me a photograph of Women's Wear Daily of. I'm with five young models, and I was introducing to Women's Wear Daily the underwear. The first thing we did, and it's a great photo. It was. No one did anything like that. I don't know why I was influenced. I was working with Kelly at the time, whom I'm married, and we would talk about underwear. We did the underwear together, and the women's underwear with the elastic band came from men's underwear. So there was a tremendous overlap between what we were doing for both sexes.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (59:52)

Going back to Vogue again. The underwear was such a phenomenon that there was an article that was written in Vogue, and Richard Martin, who was the curator of the Costume Institute, was interviewed for this piece. And he said what CK has done for the underwear industry is promote the erotic aspect. He has achieved a perfect melding of the design objective of the Bauhaus and the marketing objective of sensuality. So, I mean, it tells incredible story that there were articles about the underwear pages and page long articles.

Calvin Klein (60:30)

I never saw that. But it's nice to see you.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (60:33)

I'm gonna pull it for you.

Calvin Klein (60:34)

Thank you.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (60:34)

And show it to you. So it's 1993, and you put on a Runway show for CK. It was the first Runway show, I think, for CK. And the idea was to cast real people, which was sort of unheard of at the time. Now people, now designers are doing that and calling it a novelty. But you did in 1993.

Calvin Klein (60:59)

Well, you know, the other thing that regarding models, I used a lot of print models, models that had never done a Runway show. And I would say to them, I don't care how you walk. Walk the way you walk. Don't. Don't try and do it like a Runway show. Just walk like you're walking down the street. Because it was the image, it was the look of what we would see when she was walking, not how she turned her body and did a half U turn or something on the Runway that mattered. And so the girls were no longer frightened by the idea of walking down a Runway with, you know, hundreds of people in the showroom. And that started something too, because then models were doing fashion shows, but before that, they hadn't done them. It was Runway models, they were called. And that was like a little theatrical performance that the Runway model gave that. I thought, it's not me.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (62:15)

No. And so that goes back to this American minimalism that you stood for. It was sort of fresh and sort of. The excesses. Getting rid of the excesses.

Calvin Klein (62:28)

Yes, in a certain way. Why do you need to turn in the middle of your walk? I mean, what were people thinking? What's the reason behind that? Um, so, yeah, we just got rid

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (62:44)

of the unnecessary and simultaneous to. To launching CK and which became a huge, huge brand in the 90s, you also had a designer brand, a high fashion brand, and Vogue says at the time that it whispered style instead of screaming fashion, and that your neutral palette earned you the name Mr. Clean.

Calvin Klein (63:12)

A good way of crystallizing all of these thoughts.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (63:18)

But now, you know, it's 30ish years later, and those 90s shows of yours have become such, like, they're such landmark collections. We see designers looking at them and riffing off of them and lifting from them. Do you notice that at all?

Calvin Klein (63:36)

No, no, no, I don't. And I don't stay. It's funny because Kelly and I talk about this. When you're not doing it day to day fashion, it becomes a little less important.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (63:54)

It's hard for us fashion People to believe that.

Calvin Klein (63:56)

Well, because it used to be life or death. I mean, working with my team was pretty intense. I was not easy to be around, and we were very competitive. So you think there's nothing else in the world, but then when you're suddenly not doing it on a daily basis, you realize there is a world out there and there are lots of other things going on, and that's life.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (64:32)

Paint a picture of that. Not easy to work with. There were really long hours in the lead up to a fashion show, is that right?

Calvin Klein (64:40)

Yes. But that everyone had. I'm sure that every design team had to deal with that. And it's not how long the hours are, it's how intense they can be about being perfect. And there is nothing. There is no perfection. But we strive for something that you can't get anyway. And I think doing that creates sometimes an atmosphere of work that's tough. It was tough.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (65:21)

You like your eye for picking out models. You really. The 205 West 39 was like a finishing school for people in fashion. So many people who continue to work in the industry, really, if they didn't get their start there, they at least put in their time there.

Calvin Klein (65:42)

No, I know. I mean, I'm well aware and always so surprised when. Cause I meet people all the time in restaurants who say I worked in the company or I am still working in the company and, you know. Or in different parts of the world, you know, when you're doing it on a daily basis and you always seem to be late. Whatever we're doing, we're late at. And you're not really thinking about the influence that you might have on other people's lives.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (66:16)

Right. And there's sort of a uniform, right? The Calvin Klein uniform. When people worked there, they adopted what

Calvin Klein (66:23)

to do with the makeup, the hair, everything.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (66:26)

And no staples, I heard. No staples at the office. Only paper clips, mostly. So I wanna talk about. It's the early 2000s, and you decided to sell the company during different periods.

Calvin Klein (66:45)

Even in the 80s, I was thinking about that because I didn't have anyone in my family that was interested in the business. There are opportunities that come along where you think you can grow the business if you become part of something else. And so for those reasons, I thought about becoming part of a public company or selling. I never really thought that would be very difficult for me to be working with a new team. I mean, I just thought we could do that. But I was used to running the show and suddenly offering an opinion and not everyone running to do it. To make it happen was a bit of a shock. So I did it for a couple of years, and then I couldn't do it anymore.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (67:51)

I mean, by fashion standards today, where you have a lot of people in their 80s working, you left your brand at a pretty young age. And I wonder, do you have regrets about that at all?

Calvin Klein (68:07)

No. No. I miss the teamwork. I miss the times when, as a group, we were creating that, you know? But I look at it as. I had a good run. I mean, who would. Who am I to complain about anything? It was all good. And then I had freedom that I'd never experienced before because my traveling, wherever I was, I was always in a factory. We were working all the time or rushing back to New York because we didn't have enough time to stay away. Now I could spend as much time anywhere I want and do whatever I want, you know, and be of help to people who might need some.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (69:06)

Your name is as recognizable as Coca Cola or as Vogues. It is. Very few people understand what it's like to have that kind of a name. And I. I Wonder, these last 20 years, as you've seen your name appear on billboard after billboard. It's always changing down there on Houston and Broadway. What does it feel like to continue to see your name but not be involved with the company?

Calvin Klein (69:36)

A little odd, because I would change it. I'd make it different, for sure. I don't know that it would be any better, but it would be different. Occasionally I see something and I would think, okay, that works for me. But more often, that was always my job was to say, no, this isn't good enough. No, it should look more like that, or we should go back to something else. So that's what I did. And I could still do that even if I. I'm not doing it on a daily basis. On a daily basis. I live near Sunset Boulevard, and in New York, I put those billboards up and was able to reach people that didn't turn a page in Vogue. And that's what the idea was. So, no, I would do it differently, but I don't want to do it differently now. While I might miss some of the good, overall, I have no regrets.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (70:48)

It was strange to see the Madison Avenue store change so dramatically.

Calvin Klein (70:55)

That turned out to be a mistake. Mistakes happen. Things, you know, decisions are made that you take a chance and sometimes it doesn't work. That didn't work.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (71:11)

I have to say, I agree with you on that one.

Calvin Klein (71:14)

It didn't work. The idea of changing the interior is not A bad one. But it has to be better. Not just some crazy thing just to be different.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (71:31)

Who are your inheritors? Would you say you defined American sportswear in the second half of the 20th century? You, as I said before, known as Mr. Clean. You invented American minimalism. Who do you think holds that mantle today?

Calvin Klein (71:53)

I don't know. You should ask Donna Karen. She's better at that kind of thing than I am. I don't know. I mean, I'm not close enough to it to. And it's kind of an editor's point of view rather than a designer's. I didn't pay that much attention to what everyone was doing when I was doing it. When I was doing the work, I would focus more on what we did. And I think that's part of the reason we were successful. We ran our own horse race. We weren't looking, you know, the next horse coming up.

Choma Nadi Cioma (72:34)

Hmm.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (72:36)

Certainly some of the people who worked for you over the years. Narcisa Rodriguez has a very talented. Yes, he also practices a certain kind of minimalism. Phoebe Filo, when she relaunched Celine, there was an American minimalism to it, I would say right now. I mean, we've certainly just come through this moment where we use that quiet luxury word, you know, a thousand times too often. But post pandemic period of simplicity and I don't know if it will continue or we'll get the vibe shift everyone seems to think is coming.

Calvin Klein (73:19)

I don't have a crystal ball. I don't. I could see for the brand what we needed to do for the most part to move on, but no one knows what's going to happen.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (73:38)

So looking back, what are your proudest moments?

Calvin Klein (73:45)

I don't know. I mean, I think just overall, in terms of the fashion world, whatever we were able to do, and that still goes on. You know, they're still making fragrance, we're still doing things. And I'm proud that we were able to start something that has a life after I've left it on a day to day basis. But I don't have, like, having children. I don't have different, you know, likes or dislikes. I mean, for me, it was all about the challenge and that we were able to do something that other designers, or certainly lots of them hadn't done. So I was excited by the challenge and excited to this day, proud that it still goes on.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (74:47)

It is a challenging time for independent designers in New York. As you said, there isn't a new class of Calvin Ralphs and Donnas that seem to be emerging and maybe that's because it's a different era. But what can today's designers who are emerging now and on the rise, what can they learn from you? What advice would you give them?

Calvin Klein (75:13)

Well, the kind of thing I've been saying since we started this podcast, you need to believe in yourself before anyone's going to believe in you. And even if you have doubts, don't show them. Be confident. Act confident. That's a way you can get people to be on your side and to believe in what you're doing. It has to come from you. That's the best advice I can give anyone.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (75:50)

Where did your confidence come from, do you think?

Calvin Klein (75:56)

I don't know. I mean, I always had people that were supportive around me. People encourage me, whether that was teachers at this school or that school or positions that I held once I finished school, my family, everyone was supportive. I never had doubters, and that doesn't mean I didn't doubt. I doubted myself, but I didn't let people know. But I did basically continue to believe in what we were doing. But you go through difficult times. You know, the fashion business or any business is part of the economy. If things are not great in the world, things are not going to be great in your business. But you have to keep pushing on, work through it.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (76:52)

And the flip side of that question, to succeed like you did took a lot of drive and a lot of ambition. How did you keep replenishing that? Where did that come out?

Calvin Klein (77:04)

You don't lose that. If you have it, you have it. You know, and the other thing is, I was driven because I never thought we got to where I wanted to be anyway. I thought we still needed to work harder, do it better, and that's drive.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (77:24)

Thank you very much for coming and

Calvin Klein (77:26)

doing this with us. Thank you.

Chloe Mel (77:29)

That's it for the show. The run through is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex DePalma and Stephanie Kariuki. It's engineered by Pran Bandy and James Yost. It is mixed by Mike Kutchman. One more thing, listeners. If you're enjoying the run through, discover so much more from the Vogue universe. Like my very first issue, which just hit newsstands this week by becoming a subscriber@vogue.com therunthrough that's vogue.com therunthrough.

Calvin Klein (78:08)

One day it's cold plunges.

Chloe Mel (78:09)

The next it's adaptogens. Feeling lost in the noise of the wellness world. You're not alone. And it's time for some clarity on living well. From LA Times Studios, we go directly to the source. Every week we sit down with leading experts in the beauty and wellness space to ask the questions you want answered. No hype, no trends, just trusted advice. So find your signal in the noise and listen to living well wherever you get your podcasts

Calvin Klein (78:40)

from.

Interviewer (possibly from Vogue or The Run Through) (78:41)

PRX.