Calvin Klein
History
The early years
In 1968, Klein founded Calvin Klein Limited, a coat shop in the York Hotel in New York City, with $10,000. The first Calvin Klein collection was a line of "youthful, understated coats and dresses" featured at the New York City store, Bonwit Teller.In September 1969, Klein appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine.
1970s
By 1971, Klein had added sportswear, classic blazers, and lingerie to his women's collection.In 1973, he received his first Coty American Fashion Critics' Award for his 74-piece womenswear collection - the youngest recipient at that time. Klein won the award again in 1974 and 1975. By 1977, annual revenues had increased to $30 million (equivalent to $117 million in 2015), and Klein had licenses for scarves, shoes, belts, furs, sunglasses, and sheets. Klein and Schwartz were making $4 million each. After the company signed licenses for cosmetics, jeans, and menswear, Klein's annual retail volume was estimated[by whom?] at $100 million (equivalent to $389 million in 2015). In 1978, Klein claimed sales of 200,000 pairs of his famous jeans the first week they were on the market. By 1981, Fortune figured Klein's annual income at $8.5 million a year. In the mid-1970s, he had created a designer-jeans craze by putting his name on the back pocket. Klein's design assistant at the time, Jeffrey Banks, has claimed credit for the logo garments, stating that he had the logo from a press folder silkscreened onto the sleeve of a brown T-shirt as a present for Klein.[8] The gift was assumed by Schwartz to be part of the upcoming line, and similar logo shirts formed the uniform for the front-of-house staff at Klein's next catwalk show, leading to buyer demand.
In the late 1970s, the company also made attempts to set up its own fragrance and cosmetics lines, but soon withdrew from the market with big financial losses. In the 1980s, as the designer-jeans frenzy reached its all-time high, Calvin Klein introduced a highly successful line of boxer shorts for women and a men's underwear collection which would later gross $70 million in a single year. Calvin Klein's underwear business, promoted later in the 1990s with giant billboards showing images of pop singer Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg, became so successful that his underpants became generally known as "Calvins".
2002–present: Acquisition by Phillips van Heusen
In mid-December 2002, Calvin Klein Inc. (CKI) was sold to Phillips Van Heusen Corp (PVH),whose then CEO Bruce Klatsky was the driving force behind the deal, for about $400 million in cash, $30 million in stock as well as licensing rights and royalties linked to revenues over the following 15 years that were estimated at $200 to $300 million. The sale also included an ongoing personal financial incentive for Klein based on future sales of the Calvin Klein brand.PVH outbid VF Corp., the maker of Lee and Wrangler jeans, which had also been interested in the jeans, underwear and swimwear business of CK that had been controlled by Warnaco Group, maker of Speedo swimwear in the US, since 1997. The deal with PVH did not include these businesses, and they remained with Warnaco. Unable to pay debts from acquisitions and licensing agreements and due to bad publicity by a later dismissed lawsuit with Calvin Klein over selling license products to retailers other than agreed upon with Calvin Klein, Warnaco had filed for chapter 11 protection in mid-2001 but eventually emerged from bankruptcy in February 2003.
The transaction between Calvin Klein and PVH was financially supported by Apax Partners Inc., a New York private equity firm, which is said to have made a $250 million equity investment in PVH convertible preferred stock, as well as a $125 million, two-year secured note, all in exchange for seats on the board of PVH.
CKI thus became a wholly owned subsidiary of PVH. In the beginning, Klein himself, who was included as a person in the 15-year contract he had signed with PVH, remained creative head of the collections but then continued as an advisor (consulting creative director) to the new company from 2003 on and has since been more withdrawn from the business. Barry K. Schwartz was said to concentrate on his role as chairman of the New York Racing Association, a horse-racing club. The current President and COO of the CKI division within PVH is Tom Murry, who had filled this position already before the acquisition.
With the fall 2006 Collection runway presentations in New York City, CKI inaugurated an 8,600 sq ft (800 m2) show room space that can seat up to 600 people on the ground floor of 205 West 39th Street, in Times Square South where Calvin Klein has been headquartered since 1978.
In a 2010 report, PVH, who manages the ready-to-wear activities, had estimated sales of €4.6 billion of Calvin Klein products.
In Feb 2013 Warnaco Group was acquired by PVH which united Calvin Klein formal, underwear, jeans and sportswear lines.
Products and marketing
Product & brand history
The most visible brand names in the Calvin Klein portfolio include:
- Calvin Klein Collection (black label, upscale top-end designer line)
- ck Calvin Klein (grey label, recently repositioned as bridge collection line; licensed to Warnaco Group, Inc. through at least 2044. PVH acquired Warnaco Group in Feb 2013)
- Calvin Klein (white label, basic fashion better sportswear line)
- Calvin Klein Sport (sports version of the white label line for Macy's)
- Calvin Klein Jeans (denimwear line; licensed to Warnaco Group through at least 2044. PVH acquired Warnaco Group in Feb 2013)
- Calvin Klein Home (high end bedding, towel, bath rug and accessory collections)
- The Khaki Collection (youthful medium to high end bedding, towel, bath rug and accessories) discontinued in 2008
- Calvin Klein Golf (launched in late 2007)
- Calvin Klein Underwear (underwear collections; licensed to Warnaco Group through at least 2044. PVH acquired Warnaco Group in Feb 2013)
- CK one Lifestyle brand (fragrance, underwear, jeans -launched 2011)
- Calvin Klein Watches + Jewelry (watches launched in 1997, jewelry in 2004)
Fragrances
Calvin Klein has various lines of perfumes and colognes, including Obsession and Eternity. Until May 2005, their perfumes and the corresponding fragrance lines were maintained by Calvin Klein Cosmetics Company (CKCC), a Unilever company. Cosmetics giant Coty, Inc. of New York bought the fragrance licensing agreements from Unilever.
Advertising
The early ads were shot by Bruce Weber and Richard Avedon. One of his male underwear models, Mark Wahlberg, went on to fame as hip hop star "Marky Mark", launching himself into the Hollywood scene to become a current actor. Another Hollywood star first appearing in Calvin Klein advertisements is Antonio Sabato Jr.. Calvin Klein employed Kate Moss at the start of her career in the early 1990s and in 2002 after allegations of cocaine use. Other models who have appeared in advertisements early in their careers are Natalia Vodianova, Scott King and Toni Garrn. Currently Calvin Klein uses Tyson Ballou and Lara Stone, and in the past has also used Christy Turlington, Jerry Hall, Patti Hansen, Tom Hintnaus, David Agbodji, Travis Fimmel, Doutzen Kroes, Mini Anden, Garrett Neff, Sean O'Pry, Edita Vilkeviciute, Jamie Dornan, Liu Wen, Edward Furlong and Vladimir Ivanov. Fit Models include Dale Noelle. Actors such as Eva Mendes, Mehcad Brooks, Scarlett Johansson, Kellan Lutz, Andie MacDowell, Alexander Skarsgard, Zoe Saldana, Rita Ora, Rooney Mara and Diane Kruger have also been chosen to model for the brand. Swedish footballer Freddie Ljungberg starred in a series of adverts for the company. Recently, singer Justin Bieber shot for a campaign for Calvin Klein's underwear range.
They also have experimented with emerging technologies. When advertising cKone perfume in 1999, they placed e-mail addresses in print advertisements, targeted at teenagers. When these teens mailed these addresses, they would be placed on a mailing list that sent them mails with vague details about the models' lives, with fake details meant to make them more relatable. These mails came at unpredictable intervals, and were supposed to give readers the feeling that they had some connection with these characters. Though the mailing lists were discontinued in 2002, the campaign has inspired similar marketing tactics for movies and other retail products.
Branding
Like other fashion brands, Calvin Klein established a monogram: the "cK" emblem.
Licensees
As of 2012, the top three licensees were:
- Warnco - 40% of license royalties, which is "around $100 million"
- Coty - 12% of license royalties
- G-iii Apparel Group - 14% of license royalties
Internet
In 2004, the company bought the domain name CK.com. Calvin Klein is one of the few corporations worldwide to own a two letter domain name.
For more information Enter the official website of Calvin Klein
From here (Calvin Klein)
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق