This weekend I read Ingrid Sischy's Vanity Fair profile on Calvin Klein's post Calvin Klein Inc. existence. It constitutes buying and decorating multiple houses and it is indeed an enviable life. There is a section in the article that gets into a bit of heavy lifting in arguing Calvin Klein's validity as a landmark American designer. It got me thinking...what is it exactly about Calvin Klein that stays on our minds? After all these years, the power of his imaging still haunts American fashion like the echo of a music that once kept the party going.

I tried to trace the root of that fascination and the path lead to Calvin Klein's amazing 80's television imagery for the jeans and the fragrances . This is where I first bonded with the brand. The precise thing that made those ads so incredible was how deeply, defiantly, unflinchingly fashion they were. It was Avedon...the best lighting humanly possible, superstar hair and make-up, blue chip talent (Brooke Shields, Andie Mc Dowell, Josie Moran) all presented in this clear, hard, clean way that was so fresh and American yet so haute-editorial it was shocking.

Still from Richard Avedon's 1985 Calvin Klein Obsession Ad

Yes, the content could sometimes be quite advanced in its blase, polymorphous, anything-goes sense of "hipness". I remember as a kid being very confused by those Calvin Klein Obssession ads. I couldn't figure out why both men and women were crying in the name of love over the mysterious female protagonist . Nor could I tell if the figure in the foreground of the ad used as illustration above was a beautiful young boy or girl.

Content like this would never surface on prime time TV these days . If you think about it, no client these days dares to put an "editorial" sensibility onto Middle American television screens. But the way Calvin's estoteric message sold to the mass market was a clear testament to what a little courage and honesty can do in building up a company's image. I really think people like their media and their fashion media to be personal and felt as opposed to corporate and calculated.

As I was looking at those pictures of Calvin's Miami estate in VF I realized the one thing that made his vision transcendent was his dedication to finish. The finish of a Calvin Klein ad whether in print or television, the finish of a Calvin Klein store or a dress in a Calvin Klein show was so rigorous and obsessive, it took "clean" and "minimal" into a place that was indeed, beautifully insane. Between love and madness indeed.