Who

Although he is no longer actively involved in the fashion empire that bears his name, Calvin Klein will go down as one of the most significant designers of his generation. His daughter is Marci Klein.

Backstory

Klein grew up on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx: His domineering mom, Flo, was a homemaker and his dad operated a grocery store on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. Calvin started sketching designs as a kid and kept up his interest in fashion as a student at High School of Art and Design, later heading off to FIT. After graduation, he spent six months as a copyboy at WWD and worked for a couple of garmentos. Determined to carve out a career of his own, in 1968 he approached childhood pal Barry Schwartz and asked him for help launching a fashion line. Schwartz put up the first $10,000 so Klein could create half a dozen samples and set up a small showroom in Manhattan. His big break came shortly thereafter: A buyer from Bonwit Teller accidentally got off the elevator on the wrong floor, noticed Klein's coats, and invited him to present them to the department store's president, Mildred Custin. The meeting landed Klein a $50,000 order, though not before the fledgling designer rolled his wares on a garment rack some 20 blocks, paranoid that if he took a taxi the coats might appear creased.

Klein produced his first collection of sportswear in 1973 and his work began attracting attention from the fashion industry (and earned him mentors like designer Chester Weinberg and Vogue's Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg), thanks to his simple and well-tailored basics, like beige pantsuits and cardigans. In the late '70s, Klein branched out with a line of jeans—and struck his first licensing deal—creating buzz with a series of racy commercials to promote them. His first menswear collection soon followed, and by the mid-'80s he'd established himself as one of the reigning masters of American fashion, along with Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan.

Klein had stamped his name on virtually every product under the sun by the early '90s, but his and Schwartz's company took a turn for the worse amid the recession, and they nearly had to file for bankruptcy in 1992. (Klein was bailed out by buddy David Geffen, who bought up the company's $62 million in outstanding bonds.) In order to stay afloat, Klein and Schwartz were forced to sell off their underwear business to Linda Wachner's Warnaco in 1994. But the business rebounded nicely by the latter part of the decade, particularly after the 1993 introduction of CK, a lower-priced, youth-oriented line. After several years of rumors of a sale, the duo finally cashed out in 2002 when they sold the company to Phillips-Van Heusen for $400 million in cash, plus another $30 million in stock and millions more in annual royalties.

Klein stayed on as creative director until 2003, preparing his young protégé Francisco Costa to take over before officially stepping down. Costa continues to oversee the Calvin Klein collection while Italo Zucchelli manages the menswear line. These days, Klein occupies his days tending to his portfolio of real estate. Schwartz, for his part, wiles away his golden years breeding horses at his farm in Westchester.

Of note

Klein was arguably America's first rock star designer, and he remains a towering figure in the industry nearly four decades after founding his eponymous company. Much of his early success can be attributed to his talent, of course, but he's always been a consummate marketer, too. Like Ralph Lauren, Klein managed to carve out a lucrative business selling both down-market (jeans) and up (couture), and he was one of the first fashion titans who recognized the power of branding, stamping his name and logo across hundreds of products.

His talent for stirring up drama hasn't exactly hurt him either. Richard Avedon's 1980 TV commercial featuring a Lolita-esque, 15-year-old Brooke Shields ("You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing") sparked a furor, and Klein attracted plenty of attention for his Bruce Weber-lensed series of homoerotic billboards which towered above Times Square in the early '90s. Criticism of Klein's advertising tactics reached fever pitch several years later when ads for CK featured wasted-looking urchins with sunken cheeks, causing the media to dub his new look "heroin chic." The ads, crafted by Steven Meisel, earned a rebuke from Bill Clinton and even spurred an investigation by the Justice Department. But even in his absence, Klein's legacy of controversy continues. In 2006, the company turned to Kate Moss—who so famously appeared in Klein's nearly-naked billboards a decade earlier—as the face of the Calvin Klein Jeans brand just after she'd been busted for drug use.

Namedrop

Narciso Rodriguez got his start working for Calvin. Isaac Mizrahi worked there briefly, too. Theory founder Andrew Rosen was once employed by Klein. John Varvatos once headed up his men's division. During the '80s, Paul Wilmot served as head of the publicity department. Grace Coddington arrived in America to join Calvin Klein as creative director. Julie Mannion and Ed Filipowski have produced many of his shows over the years. Peter Marino and Thierry Despont produced designs for some of his homes. Deborah Berke helped craft the look of his stores. Allen Grubman and David Boies have provided him with legal counsel over the years. Dolly Lenz has sold him real estate. Patricia Wexler has tended to his skin. Studio 54 co-founder Steve Rubell was one of his closest friends, and Klein helped Rubell and partner Ian Schrager start their hotel empire. And his closest pals over the past three decades have been Barry Diller, David Geffen, and Sandy Gallin. As for his famous rivals/enemies, they include Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, to name just a couple.

Vice

Klein has long struggled with drug and alcohol dependency, issues that date back to the '70s when he was a regular at Studio 54 (as well as at raunchier gay spots like the Mineshaft) and routinely spent coke-fueled nights out on the town; at his worst, he reportedly had two bowls next to his bed, one filled with coke and the other with Quaaludes. At Barry Schwartz's insistence, Klein checked himself into Minnesota's celeb-friendly rehab facility Hazelden in 1988. He's returned to rehab a couple of times since, most recently in 2003 when he tried to chat up Knicks star Latrell Sprewell (on court, in the middle of a game) at Madison Square Garden. He now occasionally attends AA meetings in the West Village.

Personal

Klein's sexuality has always been a complicated affair. He married his first wife, Jayne, in 1964 when he was 21 (she was 20). They divorced a decade later and he spent much of the ensuing years involved with hunky young models male models. But in 1986 he tied the knot for a second time, marrying his former assistant Kelly Rector. By many accounts, the relationship was platonic: The two maintained separate apartments and Klein continued to have his share of dalliances with other men during their decade and a half marriage. Following a long separation, the couple divorced in 2006, and Klein is now unattached. He has one daughter from his first marriage, Marci Klein, a TV producer and the president of SNL Studios. In 1978, Marci was famously kidnapped by her babysitter on the way to Dalton, an event Klein has described as "the worst day in his life." Klein paid $100,000 for her safe return and the kidnappers were later arrested and sent to prison.

Habitat

Klein has a three-story penthouse in one of Richard Meier's Perry Street glass towers in the West Village. He paid $14 million for the pad and chartered a helicopter to check out all the views before he made the purchase. In 2003, he paid $29 million for a historic estate on 10 acres in Southampton called Elysium. One of the most valuable parcels in the Hamptons—it faces both the ocean and Shinnecock Bay—the Gothic-style castle has been in the process of renovations ever since Klein bought it. That it's taken this long is no surprise: When he purchased a home in East Hampton in the '90s, he dispatched a team to scour the earth for a specific type of aged wood for the floor of his living room. They found what Klein was looking for in a centuries-old barn in Vermont. So the designer bought the barn, had the team disassemble the structure and remove the planks one by one, and then install them in precisely the same order in his Hamptons manse.

No joke

Famously obsessive, Klein once put a Pantone chip on the wall which represented the ideal color of his coffee, so that whoever was making the beverage would know exactly how much milk to add.