Trivia About Calvin Klein

-Calvin Klein has a clothing line & a range of perfumes by his name

-CK one & CK be are different perfumes by his name for both the sexes

-Swatch Group manufactures watches and jewellery under the Calvin Klein and Calvin Klein Jeans brands.

-Calvin Richard Klein was born in The Bronx to Jewish-Hungarian immigrants.

-He attended the High School of Industrial Art and matriculated, but never graduated, from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, receiving an honorary Doctorate at the graduation ceremony in 2003.

-He did his apprenticeship in 1962 at an oldline cloak-and-suit manufacturer, and spent five years designing at other New York shops.

-He later launched his first company with a childhood friend, Barry Schwartz.

-Klein was one of several design leaders raised in the Jewish immigrant community in the Bronx, New York along with Robert Denning and Ralph Lauren.

-Calvin Klein became a personal mentor of Baron de Gunzburg through whose introductions he became the toast of the New York elite fashion scene, even before he had his first mainstream success with the launch of his first jeans line.

-"He was truly the greatest inspiration of my life... he was my mentor, I was his protégé. If you talk about a person with style and true elegance-- maybe I'm being a snob, but I'll tell you, there was no one like him. I used to think, boy, did he put me through hell sometimes, but boy, was I lucky. I was so lucky to have known him so well for so long." Klein said about Baron.

-In 1964, Klein married Jayne Centre, with whom he had a daughter, Marci, who currently works as Talent Producer for NBC's Saturday Night Live. Klein and Centre then filed for divorce in 1974.

-In the period from 1974, Klein moved on to design the tight fitting jeans that would sell 200,000 in the first week thus simultaneously launching him into fashion designer/celebrity status in the clothing design industry. Calvin Klein was also the first designer to receive outstanding design in men’s and women’s wear from CFDA award show in the same year.

-In 1987, Klein married socialite Kelly Rector (Klein) who worked for the company and is also a graduate of the Fashion Institute in NYC. She became a well known socialite photographer. They divorced in March 2006, but are known to remain close both professionally and personally.

-Calvin Klein bought a 6.6 acre ocean-front estate in Southampton Village in the Hamptons, Long Island, NY.

-Calvin Klein founded has business in the York hotel.It was a court shop

-Jacob Shmaltz,a holocaust survivor who had emigrated from Israel in 1959 was Calvin first designer

-Legend has it that a year later, in 1969, a buyer from Bonwit Teller got off the elevator on the wrong floor, and ended up placing a $50,000 order. It is more likely though, that Klein showed his work to Bonwit Teller staff, which led to the first Calvin Klein collection: a line of men's and women's coats featured at the New York City store.

-In 1969, Mr. Klein, who was later described as "the supreme master of minimalism," appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine.

-By 1971, sportswear, classic blazers as well as lingerie were added to his women's collection portfolio.

-In the mid-1970s, he had created a designer-jeans craze by putting his name on the back pocket.

-The jeans were famously advertised with a commercial featuring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields cooing in 1979/80 that "nothing comes between me and my Calvins" and "I've got seven Calvins in my closet, and if they could talk, I'd be ruined."

-Controversial advertising, including a series of ads featuring adolescents in sexually evocative poses, has been a recurring theme for the company. Shields advertised for Klein underwear in 1984 as well.

-In the late 1970s, the company also made attempts to set up its own fragrance and cosmetics business, 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 "Marky Mark" Mark Wahlberg, was so successful that his underpants became generally known as "Calvins".

-Financial problems, increased pressure from all sides, disagreements with the licensee of the menswear line and its disappointing sales as well as an enormous employee turnover both within Calvin Klein and its licensing partners led to the first rumors that Calvin Klein Industries, as the company had been known by then, was up for sale.

-Although the company almost faced bankruptcy in 1992, Calvin Klein managed to regain and increase the profitability of his empire throughout the later 90s, mainly through the success of its highly popular underwear and fragrance lines, as well as the ck sportswear line.

-Mr. Klein was named "America's Best Designer" for his minimalist all-American designs in 1993, and it came as a surprise in 1999 when it was announced that CKI was again up for sale.

-In June 2008, Calvin Klein started to sponsor America's Next Top Male Model, allowing the winner to embark on a 100,000 dollar contract as well as a runway show, as a bonus, to launch their career.

-In the early 1990s, Klein created an upscale Home Collection which included bedding, bath towels, terry bathrobes and bath accessories

-In the early 2000s, a new urban popularly-priced line of bedding and bath called The Khaki Collection was created with slightly lower thread counts.The line was discontinued in 2006

-In mid-December 2002, Calvin Klein Inc. (CKI) was finally sold to shirt maker Phillips Van Heusen Corp.

-PVH outcompeted 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, 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. Mr. Klein himself had considered Linda Wachner, then CEO of Warnaco Group, a personal enemy.

-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.

-The current President and COO of the CKI division within PVH is Tom Murry, who had filled this position already before the acquisition.