New York – "Minimal, sexy, powerful and very close to the body," was how creative director Kevin Carrigan characterized the latest looks for Calvin Klein women's and men's sportswear, jeans and underwear collections for Fall 2010.
"I wanted all the clothes to have a streamlined, aerodynamic feel to them," he said at the preview for the collection on Thursday, April 29, in New York. "Almost athletic."
Lest this sound like wearing scuba gear or a unitard, Carrigan emphasized that it was about a return to luxury, both in the tactility of the soft fabrics and in sharper, more elegant ensembles.
"I feel that people are enjoying being dressed up again," he said. "But I want them to be comfortable."
To achieve the close to the body look, Carrigan said that Lycra was used in everything to create something soft and supple that moved with the body.
"The fabrics are all engineered to contour your body," he said.
Highlights of the sleek designs for women, mostly in black and gray, consisted of skintight stirrup pants with leather panels at the knees like riding pants, a minimal take on the motorcycle jacket with a simple asymmetrical silver zip and jersey sheath dresses with waist-defining leather panels.
There were also military influences, but not of the drab camo or olive green variety. Instead, Carrigan looked to dressier aspects of military dress, like the special occasion uniforms worn by officer cadets.
The Calvin Klein Jeans collection was likewise dressy - "returning to a little decadence," said Carrigan - with a golden sheen on super skinny "jeggings" for women, a dirtier gold rinse on the men's denim and gold hardware all around. And continuing in the streamlined mode, "it's the skinniest, skinniest leg we've ever done at Calvin Klein," said Carrigan, but quickly added that they're designed to be very comfortable and engineered to flatter, whether you're skinny or curvy.
"It's darted and seamed to support a woman's curve," he explained. "So if a woman is slightly slim, and she doesn't have a booty, it's literally lifting and helping give her one. And if she has more shape, it's controlling her shape."
With such body conscious clothing, that is "slim, skinny, almost like a pencil sketch, or the shadow of a Sharpie sketch," the urgency one might feel in getting to the gym seems inevitable. But fear not, Carrigan reassured, because the futuristic scenario where clothes do the work of several thousand hours on the elliptical is here.
"These clothes actually cheat a little," he explained. "They flatter you in a way that make you feel sexy when you put them on, because they're cut for a woman's body and curves, but at the same time they're comfortable. It doesn't matter about going to the gym. The clothes do it for you."
