When Calvin Klein shocked the advertising world nearly 20 years ago by having a virginal, half-undressed Brooke Shields coo “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins,” he knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t just selling jeans–although they fairly flew off the shelves–he was selling sex and availability.
Klein has never stopped trying to shock America through his company’s ad campaigns. He has been castigated for popularizing the gaunt “heroin chic” look and again for provocatively posing models who appeared to be teenagers to advertise a jeans line. And remember those weird Obsession perfume commercials in the 1980s? Calvin Klein ads can be ambiguous, erotic, often unsettling–depending as they do on the fantasies of the observer.
The latest uproar is over ads for a new Calvin Klein line of underwear for children. But the surprising thing here is these ads were hardly shocking. In the full page black-and-white photographs that ran in newspapers, laughing children in boxers and briefs appeared to be jumping on a couch and having a marvelous time.
Critics like Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association called the ads pornographic and said they could excite pedophiles. This caused such a stir that the company–threatened with a boycott by the family values lobby–pulled the entire ad campaign.
That was a business decision Calvin Klein was free to make. But there is nothing suggestive in the photos and to suggest otherwise says more about Wildmon and the morality police than they intended.
Cynics might say this was Calvin Klein’s cheapest ad campaign ever. One photograph, priceless publicity. If you didn’t know Calvin Klein was launching an underwear line for kids, you sure do now.