Calvin Klein: Cool, Universal Fragrances

“Fragrance captures emotion.”
— Calvin Klein​

Basic Information

• Founded: 1968
• Founder: Calvin Richard Klein
• Current fragrance licensee: Coty Inc.
• Parent company: PVH Corp. (Phillips-Van Heusen)
• Official website: calvinklein.com

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The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

A Boy Growing Up in the Bronx (1942–Early 1960s)

Calvin Richard Klein was born on November 19, 1942, into a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York City. His father, Leo, was a Hungarian immigrant who ran a grocery store, while his mother, Flore, had a keen interest in fashion. Klein later said of his mother:

“For the first ten years of my life, I designed only in beige, cream, white, and brown because those were the colors my mother loved. Living in the middle-class Bronx, she lined her jackets with fur and did all kinds of ‘bold’ things.”
— Calvin Klein​

Passionate about sketching clothes from childhood, he learned the basics of patternmaking and sewing at his grandmother Molly’s alterations shop. With its convenient access to the Garment District, a center of the apparel industry, the Bronx also provided Klein with a practical education in fashion.​

He had been friends with his childhood companion and future business partner Barry K. Schwartz since the age of five. Their families also shared the experience of running grocery stores.​

The Apprenticeship Years (1960–1967)

He attended Manhattan’s High School of Art and Design, then enrolled at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, or FIT, in the fall of 1960. In January 1963, he graduated from FIT with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

After graduating, he worked for a dress manufacturer that used a fabric called “Whipped Cream,” but left after three months when salary negotiations broke down. He next worked as a sketcher for coat manufacturer Dan Millstein. Of this period, Klein said, “It was like being thrown into a snake pit. That was precisely why I learned so much.” Millstein reportedly also took Klein to haute couture shows in Paris to copy styles there.​

He then gained experience at Halldon Ltd., which specialized in faux-fur outerwear, but did not stay there long either. After several years of working his way up, Klein decided to go out on his own.​

The Birth of the Brand: $10,000 and a Dream of Coats (1968)

On December 28, 1967, Klein and his childhood friend Barry Schwartz founded the fashion company Calvin Klein Limited. The start-up capital was $10,000 supplied by Schwartz, who was then working at a grocery store.

“When Barry said, ‘I want to do it myself,’ he said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ That was how I got the money I needed.”
— Calvin Klein, on starting the business with Barry Schwartz​

The first office was a room in New York’s York Hotel. There, Klein made six coats and three dresses, hung the clothes on a garment rack, and walked through Manhattan to take them to the luxury department store Bonwit Teller.

A fateful coincidence occurred at this point. Donald O’Brien, Bonwit Teller’s vice president, was getting out of the building’s elevator on another errand when he mistakenly stepped off on the floor housing Klein’s studio. Seeing a coat hanging on the door, he stopped in on impulse and placed a large order on the spot.

Following this order, Vogue featured one of Klein’s coats on its cover in 1969. The company achieved $1 million in sales in its very first year.

The 1970s: Jeans and Licensing Usher in the “Calvin Klein Era”

In 1973, he won his first Coty American Fashion Critics Award. Consecutive wins followed in 1974 and 1975, and in 1975, at age thirty-three, he entered the Coty Hall of Fame, the youngest person ever to do so.​

In the late 1970s, he spearheaded the designer-jeans boom. His jeans achieved the extraordinary figure of 200,000 pairs sold in their first week. A 1980 commercial directed by Richard Avedon and starring fifteen-year-old Brooke Shields caused a sensation. The line “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” stirred both praise and criticism, but that year’s licensing royalties surged to approximately ten times the previous year’s level.

The Dawn of the Fragrance Business (1977–1984)

Building on his success in fashion, Klein began exploring entry into the perfume industry. But his insistence on retaining overall control was difficult for many perfume companies to accept. He held several rounds of talks with rival Revlon, but ultimately no agreement was reached.​

Klein then made what was an unusual decision at the time: to fund a fragrance himself. In January 1977, he suddenly recruited Stanley Kohlenberg, Revlon’s president of domestic operations. Kohlenberg reportedly arrived at work on a Friday without informing his boss and was escorted out of the Revlon building. He began working for Klein on February 1.​

The first fragrance, Calvin Klein for Women, was released in 1978, followed by the men’s Calvin around 1981, or possibly 1980. However, the subsequent closure of the brand’s cosmetics division at the end of 1979 forced a temporary withdrawal from the business. The fragrance business was later acquired by Minnesota-based Minnetonka Corp.

The Sale of the Company and What Followed (2003 Onward)

In the late 1990s, the company’s finances deteriorated due in part to problems in its jeans division. His close friend, music producer David Geffen, took over the company’s debt in 1992, allowing the brand to survive.​

In 1999, Klein and Schwartz publicly expressed their willingness to consider selling the company. In 2003, or late 2002, Phillips-Van Heusen, now PVH Corp., acquired it for $430 million, including up to $300 million in future royalties. Calvin Klein lost creative control, and the brand remains under PVH ownership today.

As for the fragrance license, the rights originally held by Minnetonka were acquired in 1989 by Unilever subsidiary Chesebrough-Ponds for $376 million. In 2005, Coty Inc. purchased Unilever’s entire prestige fragrance business for $800 million, bringing the Calvin Klein fragrance license with it. Coty continues to handle all fragrance products today.

The Brand’s Commitments

The Philosophy of “Capturing Emotion in Scent”

A consistent thread through Calvin Klein’s fragrances is the belief that “fragrance is emotion itself.” Each fragrance was created around a clear emotional theme: desire and fixation in Obsession, love and eternity in Eternity, and belonging and the spirit of the times in CK One.​

The same philosophy runs through its advertising. Deciding that Madison Avenue advertising agencies could not fully express his vision, Klein established an in-house advertising department, a pioneering move at the time. Working with leading artists such as photographers Richard Avedon, Bruce Weber, and Steven Meisel, he turned advertisements themselves into cultural events.​

The Design Language of Minimalism

As in its fashion, the brand’s aesthetic is reflected in its fragrance bottles. Straight-lined forms stripped of unnecessary ornament, transparent glass, and simple caps: the CK One bottle in particular attracted attention for a simplicity that overturned the perfume industry’s conventions at the time. Originally, CK One used a screw cap rather than a conventional perfume cap, a glass lid, embodying the concept of “something to keep at home rather than carry around.”

By allowing the liquid’s pale citrus-gold color to be seen, the transparent glass makes the bottle itself an embodiment of the perfume’s unisex concept.​

The Fragrance Lineup

Calvin Klein’s fragrances have broadly developed along two paths: its classic signature fragrances and the CK line.

Obsession: 1985

Released in 1985, this was the brand’s first major fragrance hit, embodying the sensual spirit of the 1980s. It was composed by perfumer Jean Guichard, a native of Grasse, the perfume-producing town in France’s Provence region.

Klein himself said of Obsession:

“The name Obsession is as big as a movie poster of this era. When I think of everything I have accomplished, I realize how ‘obsessed’ I have been. In the eighties, everyone is obsessed with something. And of course, the name suggests an obsession with someone: a man obsessed with a woman.”
— Calvin Klein, Women’s Wear Daily, January 1985​

The first-year advertising budget was $13 million, three times that of its predecessor, Calvin. The television commercials, written and directed by Richard Avedon, provoked controversy with their provocative content, but the fragrance was an immediate hit, with $7,000 in sales on the Saturday of its launch week at New York luxury department store Bloomingdale’s alone. Minnetonka’s net profit reportedly increased by 500% following the launch.

The scent is a warm amber floriental, a style combining flowers and oriental materials, built around spices, sandalwood, amber, and vanilla.​

Eternity: 1988

Launched with an $18 million budget following the success of Obsession, Eternity generated $35 million in its first year alone and became Klein’s biggest fragrance. Its perfumer was Sophia Grojsman (in Japanese), and its bottle was designed by Pierre Dinand.

A real romantic episode lies behind this fragrance. In 1986, Klein bought at auction a ring reportedly given by the Duke of Windsor, Edward VIII, to Wallis Simpson, as a gift for his then-wife Kelly Klein. The word “Eternity” was engraved inside the ring, inspiring the fragrance’s name.

“As long as we are together, time cannot touch us (As long as we’re together, time can’t touch us).”
— Eternity advertising slogan​

Model Christy Turlington appeared in the advertising and reportedly received $3 million, one of the world’s highest contract fees at the time. The scent is floral, characterized by a clean impression of white flowers.​

CK One: 1994

Released in 1994, CK One is said to have divided fragrance history into a “before” and an “after.”​

“CK One was a completely un-American scent. At the time, full-bodied, powerful fragrances were dominant. CK One was entirely different: floral, with an icy freshness and a little vanilla. It changes with the skin, a scent you can make your own.”
— Alberto Morillas, perfumer​

Its perfumery team consisted of Alberto Morillas and Harry Frémont, both perfumers from Swiss fragrance company Firmenich.

Its positioning as a “shared fragrance,” neither for men nor for women, was innovative at the time. The advertising featured black-and-white photographs by Steven Meisel, with the scene in which Kate Moss says “One fragrance for men and women: CK One” becoming emblematic. Sales reportedly reached twenty bottles per minute at their post-launch peak.

In an interview, Calvin Klein spoke about the advertising concept of the time:

“My aim was to put a cool, universal fragrance into the world, regardless of age, race, or gender.”
— Calvin Klein​

In 2020, CK One evolved into CK Everyone, updating its concept to be more sustainable and gender-free. In 2024, CK One Essence was also released to mark the original’s thirtieth anniversary, with master perfumer Morillas returning to participate.

CK Be: 1996

Released in 1996 as a sister fragrance to CK One, this androgynous floral scent pushed CK One’s concept further.

Escape: 1991

The women’s fragrance was released in 1991 and the men’s in 1993. Lighter and more outdoorsy than Obsession or Eternity, the scent reflects the turn toward casualness that emerged in the early 1990s.​

Euphoria: 2005

Released in 2005, it was composed by Ann Gottlieb. An oriental floral fragrance, it features black orchid, lotus, and other notes.

Euphoria is said to have emerged from a brand analysis of Calvin Klein conducted in 2005 by a semiotics consultancy. Launched with an advertising campaign fronted by Natalia Vodianova, it remained one of Calvin Klein’s signature pillar fragrances for at least ten years.

Other Major Lines

The current fragrance portfolio is extremely extensive. The major identifiable lines include the following.​

• Contradiction: Released in 1997
• Truth: Released in 2000
• Calvin Klein Women: Released in 2018, a floral fragrance with a more contemporary direction

Each line has numerous seasonal variations, such as Summer and Eternity Summer, and flankers, or derivative fragrances.​

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Incidentally…

• A Recruitment Like a “Wiretapping Operation”: When launching his first fragrance, Klein suddenly recruited Stanley Kohlenberg, an executive at rival Revlon. The story goes that Kohlenberg arrived at work without telling his boss, was escorted out of the Revlon building, and began working at Calvin Klein the next day.​
• When CK One Was Sold in Record Stores: With its grunge-generation image, CK One was reportedly sold not only in the usual department stores and perfume shops but also in record stores.​
• The Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s Ring Became Eternity: The ring that inspired the name Eternity had originally been given by Britain’s King Edward VIII to Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, who stood beside him when he abdicated. Klein bought the ring at auction in 1986 as a gift for his wife Kelly.​
• Barry Schwartz’s Contribution Behind the Scenes: Founding partner Barry Schwartz is indispensable to the story of the Calvin Klein brand. In 1999, Klein and Schwartz each held a 43% share in the company, whose sales reached $2.5 billion that year. Yet Schwartz rarely appeared in the spotlight and was sometimes known in fashion as “Calvin’s invisible hand.”​