An Inside Look Into The New Calvin Klein Campaign With Shawn Mendes And Kendall Jenner
This year’s spring/summer 2019 campaign for the new Calvin Klein jeans and underwear collection, CK went all out with veterans like the ‘Fashion Killa’ rapper A$AP Rocky, and supermodel Kendall Jenner alongside two debutants a Canadian singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes and ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ actor Noah Centineo. This year’s Calvin Klein campaign has more to it than just perfectly toned bodies in underwear. Let’s have a look at the message behind the new spring/summer Calvin Klein campaign.
Background To Calvin Klein’s Past Campaigns
Calvin Klein underwear and perfume campaigns have developed a reputation to uphold to and have always been somewhat controversial, certainly something to talk about each season. The subjects of CK ads are thought-out with a narrative. Back in 1992, the actor Mark Wahlberg together with a 17-year-old Kate Moss posed for the new underwear collection in black and white pictures. It sure was a stepping stone in young Kate Moss’s modeling career.
Throughout the years, Calvin Klein has landed people like Millie Bobby Brown, Solange, and many more. One of the most recent OMG moments from the CK archive was the Kardashian-Jenner clan with pregnant Khloe Kardashian and a new mom Kylie Jenner. CK continued with their #MyCalvin campaign. #MyCalvin stands for togetherness and a sense of family that was perfectly portrayed with the Kardashian-Jenner family laid-back shoot.
The ‘Our Now’ Message
This year, Calvin Klein comes with ‘Our Now’ campaign that aims to celebrate the youth, the spirit of coming-of-age with 90’s inspired visuals. In terms of the images, the essence of the photographer Glen Luchford is clear and to the point. Luchford’s style is very cinematic perfected by studio lighting setups, and his methods are precisely the message CK wanted to convey with ‘Our Now.’
There is nothing coincidental about the faces of this year’s spring/summer Calvin Klein jeans and underwear campaign. The message behind ‘Our Now’ is to honor the youth of today and what better way than by casting current relevant role models.
Glen Luchford’s lens gave us a glimpse of how does highly romanticized American youth culture look like. It is what we as outsiders looking in imagine it to be. Careless dancing around the house in a typical American suburban community, chilling without any troubles on rooftops by the Instagram filtered sunsets and making out in the back seat of cars like straight from a music video. A smart move on Calvin Klein’s end was using New Order’s ‘True Faith’ song as background music with everyone singing along to it.
Right Now
The spirit of right now, the discovery, the simplicity and naivety of today’s clout-chasing youth is captured in a video with the ‘fashion killa’ himself A$AP Rocky, the CK veteran Kendall Jenner, ‘In My Blood’ singer Shawn Mendes and the newest target of Internet fangirling is Netflix’s Noah Centineo. Four individuals from different industries representing today’s youth culture.
The ‘Our Now’ Video
The video begins with Noah Centineo on a bike cycling with his headphones on in a white staple Calvin Klein T-Shirt and Calvin Klein jeans. Next scene cuts to Shawn Mendes in white Calvin Klein boxers casually walking in his kitchen and eating cereal with the sun shining highlighting his stone hard abs.
The following scene shows Noah casually dancing in a very ’90s furnished house with a couple making out on a bed. Then the video portrays the typical youthful American activities like crawling out of the bedroom window onto a rooftop, sitting on a car listening to music, skateboarding and two girls singing in their Calvin Klein bras.
Again, Noah comes into the picture when he climbs over a fence, and Shawn Mendes leaves the bathroom zipping up his Calvin Klein jeans, of course, all is done in a very care-free fashion. Next up, Kendall Jenner sitting on a pink-toned bathroom floor filling her nails and singing ‘True Faith’ lyrics. The song keeps playing with A$AP Rocky in Calvin Klein denim laying on a rooftop singing “My morning sun is the drug that brings me near” with Shawn Mendes next paying on a guitar.
The star-studded Calvin Klein commercial wants us to be care-free, live in the moment and stay youthful.
