Calvanist Cult
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday April 12, 1993
CALVIN Klein Y-fronts. They're your better-end underdaks, designer-labelled but strictly utilitarian and not outrageously priced, worn by mainstream Americans who are a cut above discount shopping. So who would have thought they'd become cult club wear, thanks to a 21-year-old white New York rapper with bulging biceps and attitude? Marky Mark, the 175-centimetre man-child, whose brother is Donny Wahlberg of the hip hop band New Kids on the Block, wears the gear with its label-woven waistband showing above his falling-down jeans.
Marky Mark's underpants are an up-yours style of dressing made all the more remarkable because Calvin Klein's designer name has become part of a no-label anti-fashion fashion statement by a whole section of rebellious youth.
Marky Mark's personal style runs to big-brother pants pulled down to wrinkle at the ankles above Adidas sports shoes, worn with oversized T-shirts and jackets, and the ubiquitous baseball cap. His followers copy the look, the girls wearing Calvin Klein crop tops over their jeans.
Calvin Klein's marketers know a good thing when they see it and soon caught on to the new wave of consumers coming in through the door.
The company's image is generally country manor, outdoorsy and sporty, not unlike Country Road's image here.
But there has always been a raunchy side: the steamy clinch of two superbly muscled bodies in the perfume ad for Obsession, for instance; and Brooke Shields's breathless come-on: "Nothing comes between me and my Calvin Kleins,"in the 1983 jeans advertisements.
Now, Marky Mark is contracted to wear not only the underwear in all his photo shoots, but the jeans, too - a deal he has denied is worth $US7 million($9.8 million).
"If I got that much money, I would not be here right now |" he told The Face magazine, rather too ingenuously, late last year. "I got a little bit of money, but I almost blew the deal. I told them I'm not a model, you can take a picture of my normal look, but you gotta do it my way." He later told another magazine that he only he got $US100,000 ($140,000) for the campaign.
He told the magazine that when he was asked to wear tight jeans, the Calvin Klein look: "I said, yo man | This is me | I don't want to f--- up my rap career |"
Nicely said. Calvin Klein gets street cred; Marky Mark doesn't lose his. It's a publicist's dream.
The press and television ad campaigns, shots by photography superstar Herb Ritts, feature Marky Mark and the latest supermodel sensation, 18-year-old Kate Moss, in a sultry scene. Marky Mark paraphrases Brooke Shields's old line: "She could definitely come between me and my Calvin Kleins." Australian viewers will see the ad in May.
Calvin Klein underwear for men has been available in Australia through David Jones stores for a couple of years.
Last year, Clyde Davenport, whose Davenport label on boxer shorts and sleepwear has been a runaway success since he began six years ago, tied up a distribution deal with the American company to sell the merchandise in Australia.
The deal was a departure for Calvin Klein, which likes to keep control of its product wherever it is sold, usually through concept shops within department stores.
Davenport is importing the product direct from Calvin Klein's Hong Kong manufacturers, knocking 25 per cent off previous Australian prices. It is available through all department stores now, and specialty stores (but not discounters). The men's wear is in store already; the women's wear is due to arrive mid-April.
Retail demand has been so strong, says Clyde Davenport, that "our optimistic projections were blown out of the water. We've cranked up production and we're in catch-up mode".
Australians will probably take up Calvin Klein underwear in reverse order to the home country. In the US, it was the mainstream which wore the gear before Marky Mark came along. Here, the ads will probably guarantee a young fashion fad, while parents will eventually catch on to the quality and serviceability of the underwear.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald
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