In a surprising development, designer Raf Simons’ exit was announced in an abrupt press release sent out on Friday evening, ending his much-ballyhooed relationship with Calvin Klein. Simons’ tenure at the iconic American fashion brand lasted less than two years after the designer showed his first collection for the brand. He had joined CK in August 2016, prior to which he held the role of creative director at Dior.
What now entices the industry stakeholders is the future of the brand without its much-anticipated designer collection as Calvin Klein has cancelled its fashion show at the New York Fashion Week A/W’19, which was previously scheduled for Feb. 12. This raises the question on how the company would recover from the pricey, multimillion-dollar Simons experiment that failed after a mere period of 28 months and 8 months before the designer’s tenure was supposed to end.
The release stated that the Chief Creative Officer has “amicably decided to part ways,” and that the brand has set its eyes on a new brand direction, which is different from Simon’s creative vision.
Simons was behind Calvin Klein 205W39NYC, the high-end designer collection, which had garnered a hefty investment of over US $ 65 million by parent company PVH Corp. over the past three years. Despite 40 doors under Simons and 20 to 25 doors under former Calvin Klein women’s creative director Francisco Costa for wholesale distribution, the line faced difficulty in retail sales as per a statement by PVH’s chairman and chief executive officer Emanuel Chirico to Wall Street.
The failure of this design collection proved that Calvin Klein performs better through a wholesale-model and directly controlled retail suits better for legacy designer labels as well as luxury market stalwarts.
