Veronica Leoni channels ‘hedonistic magnificence’ at Calvin Klein – with a contact of kink

It has been one yr since Veronica Leoni introduced her debut assortment for Calvin Klein, which marked the primary runway present from the American powerhouse for the reason that departure of Raf Simons in 2018. Her activity was not a simple one: Calvin Klein, which was based in 1968 however would come to reshape trend within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, was at all times a couple of temper and a second. The place the storied European homes have historical past – bulging archives, defining silhouettes, a runway present seared within the reminiscence – Calvin Klein is a slip costume, a pair of denims, a white T-shirt, underwear. And all these ads: CK One, with its slouching gang of Steven Meisel-shot fashions, Kate Moss and Marky Mark embracing in white Y fronts and low-slung denims, and that Brooke Shields advert (‘nothing will get between me and my Calvins’ – she was simply 15 years outdated).

Calvin Klein Assortment A/W 2026: a ‘hedonistic magnificence’

It’s unattainable to duplicate the cultural heft of those moments. A lesser designer may try to seize an identical shock issue; Leoni, who comes from roles at The Row and Moncler, started within the archives. Her astute, if restrained, opening assortment channelled a extra tempered sensuality – flushes of scorching pink, overcoats grasped closed within the hand, sweetheart necklines – which she noticed as echoing the namesake designer’s runway collections, memorable for his or her purity of design fairly than overt sexuality. ‘In terms of sexiness, it’s extra like an perspective,’ she mentioned on the time. ’You personal it in the best way you put on the garments. I believe it’s actually intimate being attractive – whatever the silhouette, the quantity of pores and skin, it’s concerning the confidence.’

This afternoon (13 February), Leoni introduced her third assortment for the home at The Shed, erecting a round runway within the centre of the huge Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed arts centre on New York’s west facet. The Italian designer started the gathering by trying again to the late Nineteen Seventies, a time simply earlier than Calvin Klein had exploded into the general public consciousness (the Brooke Shields advert aired in 1980). There was a 1976 pair of denims, the primary to seem on the Calvin Klein runway, which Leoni replicated, whereas the gathering itself channelled what she described as a ‘hedonistic magnificence’. ‘There was a rigour, a sophistication that appears to come back from one other time, however there was additionally this cult of the physique [starting to emerge] that’s extraordinarily Calvin – we wished to push that nearly narcissistic form of kink,’ she instructed reporters backstage.

So there was power-shouldered tailoring lower away on the again; cleverly manipulated vest tops that appeared as if the sleeves had been pulled as much as expose the bicep; slices of ‘fur’ (it was really trimmed and dyed shearling) and leather-based (some with the phantasm of rubber); and attire that twisted across the physique, as if pulled on in haste. There was additionally a better sense of dressing up than in her earlier collections (blown-up company tailoring and trench coats felt nearly fetishistic); backstage, Leoni mentioned she wished to indicate that Calvin Klein was not solely concerning the casualwear with which it’s synonymous. ‘The mainstream notion is all concerning the underwear, that informal way of life,’ she mentioned. ‘However we explored the promoting he was doing firstly, and there have been these lovely, refined girls; there was this couture drape taking place, and intensely stylish suiting.’