All posts tagged: Calvin

Alessandro Nivola Talks Calvin Klein and Carolyn Bessette

Alessandro Nivola Talks Calvin Klein and Carolyn Bessette

Published by Daniella Wilson

[This story contains spoilers from Love Story, episode six, “The Wedding.”] Portraying Calvin Klein — a name nearly everyone knows and a designer who defined minimalist fashion in the 1990s — is no small feat, but Alessandro Nivola was up for the challenge. Klein is also largely responsible for launching the career of another fashion icon: Carolyn Bessette. And while FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette mainly focuses on the relationship — and tragedy — of JFK Jr. (played by Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn (Sarah Pidgeon), viewers also get a glimpse of Carolyn’s life before she met John, when she lived in New York’s East Village and worked for Calvin Klein. He also played a role in bringing the couple together. The first six episodes depict Carolyn’s working relationship with Calvin, her rise through the ranks at the fashion company, and the two’s real friendship. “There was a platonically romantic element to it,” Nivola tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I think he really loves her.” That’s what makes Thursday night’s episode especially painful: …

We Need a ‘Love Story’ Spinoff About Alessandro Nivola’s Calvin Klein Immediately

We Need a ‘Love Story’ Spinoff About Alessandro Nivola’s Calvin Klein Immediately

Published by Jenni Sidey

This is an edition of the weekly newsletter Tap In, GQ senior associate editor Frazier Tharpe’s final word on the most heated online discourse about music, movies, and TV. Sign up here to get it free. The first sign that Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette might be a banger—even for me, someone who has never been intrigued by the titular lovebirds’ doomed relationship—was, naturally, not a scene that revolved around their courtship. Instead, it involves Annette Bening. In that first episode, we watch our heroine Carolyn striding into the Calvin Klein offices as if she’s already the master of the universe, even though she’s actually relatively low on the totem pole, something her manager is keen to remind her of. But you can’t keep a bad bitch down. Carolyn’s voice, and more importantly, her taste, shine through during a styling session with the one and only Ms. Beatty, who’s in the office to get fitted for Warren’s Bugsy premiere. She wants to feel comfortable, but also make a statement; Carolyn is …

Exclusive: Barcelona Star Raphinha Is the New Face (and Abs) of Calvin Klein Underwear

Exclusive: Barcelona Star Raphinha Is the New Face (and Abs) of Calvin Klein Underwear

Published by Jenni Sidey

Raphinha shouted out everyone at CK for making him feel comfortable wearing nothing but his skivvies, saying the “vibe on set was super cool.” Joining the likes of Bad Bunny, Jung Kook, and Jeremy Allen White as one of the faces of such a beloved brand, stripping down for Calvin Klein was a full-circle moment for the player, who had celebrity aspirations as a kid growing up in Porto Alegre. “I remember when I was young seeing the iconic campaigns with football stars and celebrities and just dreamed of one day being part of this universe,” he said. Now boasting 18 million Instagram followers, he’s certainly in the same universe as the soccer wizards he watched during his youth. But to truly ascend to the level of Pele, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho, it’s obvious what Raphinha and his Brazilian side must do at the upcoming World Cup: win the whole thing. Currently ranked fifth in the world, the Seleção are among the favorites, along with South American neighbors and 2022 champions Argentina, as well as European …

Brooke Shields on Style, the New “Sex Sells,” and Returning to the Calvin Klein Fold

Brooke Shields on Style, the New “Sex Sells,” and Returning to the Calvin Klein Fold

Published by Sam Flores

To her point, when designers take on legacy brands like this one, they can feel an urge to start fresh. “But they’re not broken, so they don’t really need to be fixed,” Shields says. “They need to be enhanced and nurtured and preserved. I think it’s a strong designer who can incorporate the initial sort of essence or DNA [of a brand], and modernize it and put their stamp on it, I feel like that’s true design.” It’s not just advertising that has changed, but fashion, too. So much of what’s shown on the runways today appears to be a desperate call for attention—from the internet, from the audience at the show, from someone. “In this day and age, there’s shock value and all these different ways to get people’s attention, and that’s not what this brand ever was,” Shields says. Sure, the advertisements of the ‘80s and ‘90s were sparked conversations, and they still do, but those were for the underwear or jeans, not for the collections shown on the runway. At Calvin Klein, …

Did Calvin Klein Really Introduce JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette?

Did Calvin Klein Really Introduce JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette?

Published by Jenni Sidey

No. But she did help her become the face of Calvin Klein. In the first episode of American Love Story, Carolyn Bessette pulls Kate Moss’s headshot out of a pile of rejected photos on Calvin Klein’s desk. Bessette is said to have helped create the look of Calvin Klein’s CK One era, and among her greatest contributions was lobbying—along with art director Fabien Baron—for a then-unknown Kate Moss to appear in a 1992 underwear ad alongside Mark Wahlberg. The resulting TV ad is, to put it in the kindest possible terms, a great reminder that we’ve come a long way as a society in the last 30 years, but it would launch Moss’s career. She would soon go on to become the face of Obsession, and a definitive influence in 1990s fashion in her own right. Was Equinox a thing back in 1992? JFK Jr. in Central Park in 1997. Lawrence Schwartzwald/Getty Images Yup! But JFK Jr. probably didn’t work out there. While he may or may not have ever taken an aerobics class with …

Calvin Klein, 83, and model boyfriend, 36, twin in matching outfits during rare sighting

Calvin Klein, 83, and model boyfriend, 36, twin in matching outfits during rare sighting

Published by Daniella Wilson

Calvin Klein may be 46 years older than his boyfriend, Kevin Baker, but he appears to have no trouble keeping up with his model beau. The 83-year-old fashion designer was pictured with Kevin, 36, on Monday during a rare sighting as the pair left Gold’s Gym in Venice, Los Angeles.  Following their workout, Calvin and Kevin exited the gym wearing matching outfits, with both men sporting long-sleeved black tops and gray cargo pants. The only difference in their ensembles was their footwear, with Calvin sporting a pair of dark Nike sneakers, while Kevin opted for a pair of white Converse. © BACKGRIDCalvin and Kevin wore matching tops and cargo pants Relationship Calvin and Kevin are notoriously private about their relationship, but they have been together for around a decade. While it’s unclear when they started dating, they were first publicly spotted together in 2016 at the Mint Luxury Conference in Mumbai, India. © Getty ImagesCalvin and Kevin have been together for at least a decade Not long after that first sighting in March, the couple were …

Tell Me Lies Stars Turned Real-Life Couple Grace Van Patten and Jackson White on Their Steamy Calvin Klein Campaign

Tell Me Lies Stars Turned Real-Life Couple Grace Van Patten and Jackson White on Their Steamy Calvin Klein Campaign

Published by Sam Flores

Grace Van Patten and Jackson White were engaged in a heated fight, in character while shooting season three of their Hulu drama, Tell Me Lies, when an unexpected email changed the atmosphere. “It was kind of a hard day—intense scenes and we were just low-energy,” she recalls. The message revealed that the costars and real-life couple had been cast in a new project: Calvin Klein’s Valentine’s Day campaign. “We literally jumped up and down,” Van Patten exclusively tells Vanity Fair. “We never do that,” White adds, curled up next to Van Patten on a leather couch in the Condé Nast offices in downtown Manhattan. “We couldn’t fight in the scene—we were too happy.” It was a needed mood boost for the leads, who, over three seasons of playing Tell Me Lies’ toxic estranged exes, Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco, have heard their fair share of romantic horror stories from the show’s fan base. Dating in 2026 “seems really scary, honestly,” Van Patten says, “but it’s always the best compliment when people come up to me …