Calvin Klein Says Designer Fashion Is Over – The New York Times

Calvin Klein is getting out of fashion . At least the trendsetting, wardrobe-shaping kind.

On Thursday, the brand whose combination of sex appeal and minimal sportswear helped define American style for an international audience, and which was once a tent pole of the New York Fashion Week schedule, said that it would be closing its luxury collection business.

“Collection” is the official designation of the line shown during fashion week. It is the most expensive part of the business and accounts for the clothes most often seen in glossy magazine shoots and on celebrities. Calvin Klein is, at least for the foreseeable future, leaving the runway behind.

The move comes three months after the departure of Calvin Klein’s chief creative officer, the Belgian designer Raf Simons, whose appointment had been announced with great fanfare in 2016 (and who had changed the name Collection to 205W39NYC, after the address of the brand’s headquarters). His ascension was billed as a return to the years of Calvin Klein, when one visionary designer was responsible for all aspects of the brand. Closing the brand’s collection business marks not only a complete reversal of that decision, but the rejection of a business model long held dear in the industry: the so-called “halo” effect of a high-end line that acts as an attention-getter and newsmaker, driving sales of more mass (and profit-generating) jeans, underwear and perfume.