Calvin Klein 'Women' Fragrance 2018 : Lupita Nyong'o & Saoirse Ronan by Anne Collier

[TaylorBinque]

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[TaylorBinque]

NEW YORK, United States — In his acceptance speech at the CFDA Awards this past June, Womenswear Designer of the Year Raf Simons thanked many people, including his friends and family and his Calvin Klein colleagues. He even thanked (CFDA chairman) Diane von Furstenberg. But in the end, he also thanked “women.” Just, "women." Full stop.

Coincidence or not, "Women" happens to be the name of Calvin Klein's latest fragrance, its first new perfume pillar in 13 years and the first to be designed in collaboration with Simons, who joined the PVH-owned brand as its chief creative officer in August 2016. The campaign, photographed by the designer’s long-time friend, visual artist Anne Collier, features actors Lupita Nyong'o and Saoirse Ronan, whose technicolour portraits are dealt out alongside black-and-white images of women who “inspired and influenced” them. (Nyong'o cited Eartha Kitt and Katharine Hepburn; Ronan chose Sissy Spacek and Nina Simone.)

With a suite of fragrances that includes of some of the most recognisable in history — CK, Eternity and Obsession — proposing an entirely new concept may have been Simons’ greatest challenge since embarking on the revamp of the Calvin Klein brand image.

Ready-to-wear and advertising came first in order to set the tone, and then an upgrade of the mass-market denim collection, which relaunches in earnest this autumn. But Simons says he has been thinking about what to do with fragrance from day one, and with good reason. While Calvin Klein's overall retail revenue reached $9.1 billion globally in 2017, a significant portion of that is fragrance sales, of which PVH earns fees from its licensing agreement with Coty. The Calvin Klein business generated $226.4 million in royalties overall in 2017. The fragrance business is the second largest license behind G-III, which produces the Calvin Klein apparel (except for jeans and underwear) sold at department stores like Macy's.

“Immediately when I arrived, I looked closely at the various fragrances in the portfolio because it was important for me to continue the stories they captured, which were all iconic and meaningful moments,” Simons told BoF. “It became clear very early on that we should create a new fragrance and a new chapter to the story.”

That new chapter will begin July 16, when Calvin Klein Women launches exclusively at Harvey Nichols’ Knightsbridge location, coinciding with the debut of the Calvin Klein 205W39NYC ready-to-wear collection at the British luxury department store.

But Harvey Nichols will only maintain that exclusive for one month. A critical initiative for both Calvin Klein and its fragrance partner Coty, the ambitions for Calvin Klein Women are sweeping. “Calvin Klein is the biggest fragrance brand in the world,” said Edgar Huber, president of Coty Luxury, the division of the beauty conglomerate that serves as the fragrance partner for designer brands including Burberry, Marc Jacobs and Chloé.

While net sales of the Calvin Klein suite of fragrances, which include CK One, Eternity, Euphoria and Obsessed, are slightly up year-on-year, Huber, who joined Coty in 2015 from Land’s End, wants to capitalise on the current positive energy around the brand. (Sales at Calvin Klein were nearly $3.5 billion in 2017, a 10 percent increase from the year before.) The approach is not dissimilar to that of Gucci Bloom, the hit fragrance designed and launched in partnership with the Italian house’s creative director, Alessandro Michele.

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[GivenchyHomme]

The bottle with they eye looks amazing! That should be the ad.

 

[tigerrouge]

This ad successfully promotes Lupita and Saoirse more than it does the perfume.

 

[Perickles]

I love it! I just would cut Saoirse Ronan and leave Lupita in the center.

 

[Yohji]

Some tea: Lupita originally picked Grace Jones one of her two insprations and the people at Calvin Klein told her to choose somebody else because they believe her image doesn't align with the brand.

 

[mepps]

Some tea: Lupita originally picked Grace Jones one of her two insprations and the people at Calvin Klein told her to choose somebody else because they believe her image doesn't align with the brand.

WOW. Really?!
This really shouldn't shock me tho.

 

[Benn98]

How ridiculous! Can someone speed me through this nauseating politically correct and pandering era in fashion????? Honestly. To have the temerity, the laziness to develop a fragrance called 'woman'?? I'm positively fed up with the way so called pro-women vanguards like Raf and MGC are profiteering from the feminist movement with such boldness. I'm not even a feminist myself, but I find this crude on so many levels.

All I hear is an awful lot of blah blah blah, where's the fragrance notes? Campaign looks forgettable which was to be expected with anything where he had input. And I don't care for Lupita because the word 'no' literally don't exist in her vocabulary, but I'm a bit disappointed in Saiorse who seems such a level-headed young woman.

 

[Phuel]

Feminist rhetoric aside, what an banal-looking campaign that’s more fitting for a basic inspiration poster at a high school’s guidance councillor’s office. This really is on the same basic level as that offensively-hilarious Versace statement for that current campaign, some more rhetoric about “inclusivity and diversity”— only to cast an army of waify kidz-- with not an older, or bigger model included… Raf isn’t quite on the level of fashion-parody that Donatella is, but he’s getting there.

 

[Urban Stylin]

For a moment there I thought that was Adut

 

[gazebo]

I wish #TimesUp for Raf at CK. #MeToo Think it's annoying and ridiculous, and most of all dull and sterile.

 

[Nomar]

Overly pretentious but I still like it. I assume they'll also be launching a 'Men' counterpart then?

 

[Benn98]

I assume they'll also be launching a 'Men' counterpart then?

Why would they, Nomar? Men are not 'trending'.....

 

[YohjiAddict]

^Hahaha It just seems so absurd to me since fashion's been celebrating woman since the dawn of day without having to advertise it. It's just now that everyone decided that fashion should be a political platform of sorts that they started to pander to the instactivist rethoric of bland, sanitized image-making.

 

[Deleted member 141523]

 

[dfwn2n]

Can he stop being so obsessed with Andy Warhol?

 

[Lola701]

Since when Kanye's repertoire became the soundtrack of "all" the fragrances ads?
Paco Rabanne, Dior, CK...

 

[Benn98]

Since when Kanye's repertoire became the soundtrack of "all" the fragrances ads?
Paco Rabanne, Dior, CK...

Admit it, you're low-key happy! Lol.
I think it's awful personally. At least I could look at the Dior ad on mute because there was enough for me, visually. With this ridiculous concept and equally ridiculous video, there's nothing which interest me. And Saiorse is more Gucci that CK.

 

[kenndale]

So boring, so budget...and I agree, enough with Andy Warhol.