4 posts tagged "Kevin Carrigan"
Minimalism Warms Up At Calvin Klein
You can smell a Calvin theme by the set dressing. Last season’s ode to angularity and geometric form was staged under the eaves of a house stripped to its beams. But today’s Fall presentation of Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein Jeans, and Calvin Klein Underwear, all under the able auspices of Kevin Carrigan, was white sand and what looked like wheat-y beach grass. “It could be Marfa, Texas; it could be Calvin in the Hamptons,” Carrigan said.
Marfa, Texas, was famously the seat of power of the great minimalist Donald Judd, whose influence the designer said he had been channeling. But the driving spirit was, as always, fashion’s master minimalist: Calvin himself. Minimalism can read chilly, but Carrigan was working to bring out its softness and warmth. “A sensual shift,” he opined. You could see that in the cool, creamy palette and the brushed fabrics. “I’ve never used these brushed alabaster flannels,” Carrigan said, gesturing at a simple sheath dress, “and, to me, that’s quintessential Carolyn Bessette”—quintessential Calvin girl, onetime Calvin employee, and nineties minimalist par excellence.
The range had a quiet glamour that last season’s outing missed, and key pieces—like Antonina Vasylchenko’s fur-trimmed parka, worn with a loose-woven cabled sweater—looked appealingly rich. Carrigan aimed to leaven minimalism with movement, so crystal-pleated shirts swished and longer pant lengths slouched and trailed. The longer skirts, on the other hand, hitting just below the knee, were a little too schoolmarm strict. A black leather pleated skirt and stud-fastening shirt looked like more fun.
Calvin Klein, Inspired By Calvin Klein
“The Minimalist” is the title Kevin Carrigan gave to his new collections for Calvin Klein’s White Label. “Mies van der Rohe, Ellsworth Kelly, that American era,” he said at a presentation yesterday, where models lounged, sunbathed, and did the occasional pushup in a minimal “house” made of construction studs. “Artists were doing things that were very linear, very graphic. Calvin’s always had this singular note of architectural, minimal. It seems like a lot of people doing that, using Calvin as an influence. So why not be true to us?”
You can’t out-Calvin Calvin, in other words, and the collection he showed suggested that resistance may be futile. The fabrics are soft (habutai and crepe de chine, jersey) but the lines were hard and graphic: bold blocks of color and stripe, in black and white, set off by what Carrigan was calling “gouache colors”: cool viridian green and cobalt blue. Stark, yes, but not rigid—”the effortless ease of a tunic and a T-shirt” is how Carrigan summed it up—and though colors were cooler, they were still pretty bright. They’d been inspired by the runaway success of the brightly colored underwear and jeans the skivvies division created last season. If drawers continue to be the predictor of things to come, look out for single-seam garments next season: That’s the big story for this Spring’s underthings.
Skin Is (Still) In
Calvin Klein hosted its Fall presentation this morning at the company’s 39th Street headquarters. Kevin Carrigan, the brand’s global creative director, was feeling jolly, not only because he’s headed to Bali for a break later this week, but also because revenues for the Calvin Klein business were way up for the fourth quarter last year. Walking us around the installation, he said, “It started with skin.” As in a second-skin jersey turtleneck (a hot item on the Fall runways) and faux animal skins ô la this snake pattern top and pants outfit, the collection’s strongest look. Python just won’t quit. We saw it on the Spring catwalks, and it slithered its way down plenty more for Fall; see Prada, Dries Van Noten, and Bottega Veneta. It can be a pricey trend to latch on to, which is where Carrigan and his head-to-toe prints ($69 for the top and $89 for the harem pants) come in.
Cadet Calvinites, Report For Duty
This morning, our senior market editor, Marina, and I went to check out Calvin Klein’s offering for Fall. And though Kevin Carrigan and the design team helming the Calvin Klein and Calvin Klein Jeans lines aren’t on exactly the same nouveau-futuristic wavelength as Collection creative directors Francisco Costa (women’s) and Italo Zucchelli (men’s), there’s plenty of the sleek, slightly severe return to minimalism that characterized the Collection runways (and their assortment of high-nineties supes). Slim separates—”cadet-inspired,” the company has it—came in black wool, some snaked with gleaming zippers, as in a chic, asymmetrical jacket. A one-button women’s suit with inlaid leather panels, new for this season, was sharp. But best overall, Marina and I agreed, was the men’s footwear. A pair of side-buckled Chelsea boots (bottom) lightened up the military tone of the men’s collection, and I loved the angular rubber soles on a pair of black lace-ups (top) from the Jeans collection.