Calvin Klein's Kate expectations

Calvin Klein described signing Kate Moss for his 1990s campaigns—and ushering in a shift from supermodels to waifs in the process—as a statement against the era’s overblown beauty ideals.

‘[B]efore that, a lot of women were getting breast implants and doing things to their buttocks. It was getting out of control,’ Klein said during a speaking engagement in New York on Monday, as reported in WWD. ‘I just found something so distasteful about all that. I wanted someone who was natural, always thin. I was looking for the complete opposite of that glamour type that came before Kate.’

Klein, in conversation to New York Fashion Week organiser Fern Mallis, explained his career triumphs as a blend of successes and lucky blunders. His iconic jeans happened after ‘a man came up to me and said, “Would you like to see your name on denim?”’

Underwear, a product category so important to the brand that the word ‘Calvins’ is still synonymous with briefs, proved more problematic to Klein’s relationship with daughter Marcy.

‘She was quoted in Time or Newsweek to something of the effect of, “Every time I go to bed with some guy, I’m looking at my dad’s name on their underwear.” I said to my psychiatrist at the time, “I don’t think that’s very funny.” And he said, “Lighten up.”’

The designer assumed a more serious demeanour when asked for his advice for young designers.

‘You need to have a vision. A designer, any designer, needs to say something that is different than what’s being said,’ he offered. ‘And then you have to be convincing. Even if you’re not confident, act as though you are confident. That is the only way you can convince people to believe in what you believe in.’

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