Calvin Klein - Minimal, clean, simple

Calvin Klein, founder of  "Calvin Klein"

Calvin Klein is an American fashion brand founded in 1968 by Calvin Klein and is one of the best known and recognizable fashion brands worldwide. The Calvin Klein brands include — Calvin Klein Collection, Calvin Klein (platinum label), Calvin Klein (white label), Calvin Klein Jeans, Calvin Klein Underwear, Watches + Jewelry, Calvin Klein Fragrances, CK One Color Cosmetics and Calvin Klein Home. Klein sold the company to Phillips-Van Heusen in 2003, and his Brazilian protégé, Francisco Costa, was appointed creative director of women’s. Italo Zucchelli helms menswear, and Kevin Carrigan oversees the sportswear and retail line of Calvin Klein, ck Klein and the licensing arms.

I've always had a clear design philosophy and point of view about being modern, sophisticated, sexy, clean and minimal. They all apply to my design esthetic. - Calvin Klein in Women's Wear Daily.

Calvin Klein’s design philosophy is rooted in minimalism or extreme simplicity, uncomplicated and clean. In addition, Calvin Klein’s design philosophy is also related to the modern American fashion that is comfortable, extremely brief and luxury; focusing on aesthetics, purely simply, easy style and elegant. Klein is known for creating stylish “casual chic” clothing for active ad modern women. Even though the company was sold, the original design philosophy of designer, Calvin Klein is still embedded in the Calvin Klein brand where the designs are still exerting the registered trademark of Calvin Klein, the minimalist style.

Flippars - drawn from memory

As my groupmates and I visited the Calvin Klein Platinum outlet at KLCC, we managed to interview one of the sales assistant and found out that their anchor products or the type of clothing that they have for every season in Malaysia is the “filppar” pants (women’s wear). The silhouette of the pants is unique as it resembles the silhouette of the harem pants where the “filppar” is wider at the hips and tapers at the end but less baggy than harem pants. Furthermore, Calvin Klein has their own signature tee which is a t-shirt with “Clavin” imprinted at the front and “Klein” at the back that comes with a few colours.

Young adults customers

Customers are mostly young adults where their age ranges from mid-20’s to 30’s. Generally the customers that visits the store are Dato and Datins that have considerably wealthy backgrounds. 

Calvin Klein Platinum, KLCC Outlet

The season of the collection they have in-store is the autumn/winter 2015 collection. The silhouettes are mostly oversized, boxy, loosely fitted and long outerwear. 

The key colours of the season were neutral colours or earth tones which include black, white and grey which is also the main colour that can be found in most of the Calvin Klein design every season. Besides that, colours of the season includes navy blue as to complement the season and little hints of green were seen in a few pieces. According to the sale assistant, they also have pieces in red but only during the spring-summer collections. In addition, their designs are in monotone colours which corresponds with their brand’s philosophy of being minimal.

Calvin Klein Platinum, KLCC Outlet

Calvin Klein Platinum, KLCC outlet

The exterior of the store is simple and has a modern look as it has fully glassed windows with no door and mat grey tile flooring that do not reflect light. The store is generally dim with low light settings and they only had lights brightly lit at the mannequins and where the clothes were hanged. This gives a little highlight on the clothes and allows customers to be attracted to them as they step in the store. The products were mostly hanged and at the new arrivals section, they will have one particular garment being hanged facing the customer up front at each clothes rack (instead of facing sideways) which gives a little highlight on that particular piece and makes it stand out like the garments being displayed on the mannequin.

New arrivals, products arrangement - drawn from memory

When we stepped into the store, words like minimal, simple, monotone, modern, casual, chic came into our minds, and we believe this is what Calvin Klein wanted their customers to feel through their designs and the interior of their store; everything is kept simple.