Wed 14th February
Finally we made it to the barn. If you’ve been paying attention, a barn has been featured in all the latest Calvin Klein campaigns. Inside the barn Sterling Ruby pom poms hung from meathooks and buckets overflowed with popcorn. The runway crunched, so salty, flooded with popcorn. A nod to Andy Warhol’s ‘Popcorn’ (1976-1986) perhaps? We do know that Raf Simons has got his hands on some unpublished Warhol works. “He captured all sides of the American experience, including sometimes its darker sides,” Raf said of Warhol. Yes, this was the dark side. In Space Race bonnet-like balaclavas the women and men walked, high vis strips of tape reflecting on workwear jackets. These kids are dangerous.
Tailored oversized overcoats held strong, keeping warm with picture knits of Loony Tunes’ Coyote and Road Runner. Meep meep. A collage of American home grown culture. There was a romantic modernity as the pinstripe cotton dresses swished around the popcorn, bias cut collars fluttering, so prairie girl. A vaulting innocence, some sense of hope and glory here. Silk georgette was finely layered, tiered in tiny bands of soft colour matched to the fabulous quilts, cocooning us against the harsh American reality. This was a “different dream,” a new Americana. Translucent plastic reflected, turning into shiny liquid silver metals with each step. It was ladylike, softer but with all that hardcore hazmat and thigh high vinyl boots providing protection. Raf is moving Calvin Klein forward, evolving, exciting, next level. All about freedom, “a word that defines America and Calvin Klein,” Raf said. As it read on the popcorn boxes, ‘More and more and more!’
