Calvin Klein Inc.
Established 1968Founded in 1968 by Calvin Klein as a coat shop in the York Hotel in New York City, Calvin Klein Inc. is an American fashion house that changed the American market of men’s underwear. In the days, men wore boxer shorts or briefs, but Calvin Klein designed a hybrid type of men’s undergarment which are long in the leg, similar to boxer shorts, but tighter-fitting like briefs: the boxer brief.
It was designer John Varvatos, head of menswear design at Calvin Klein, who stood on the forefront of one of the greatest apparel revolutions of the century. In 1992 he created a series of print ads and giant billboards featuring Mark ‘Marky Mark’ Wahlberg – and a modern icon was born. Boxer briefs became so successful that they became generally known as ‘Calvins’. Varvatos: ‘We just cut off a pair of long johns and thought, this could be cool…’
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