Calvin Klein Underwear Celebrates 25 Years

The Calvin Klein Underwear brand celebrated 25 years of sales, success, advertising controversies, and making plain white (or black) cotton underwear damn hot with a major party hosted by current Calvin model and two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank and brand new Calvin model and Oscar-nominee Djimon Hounsou.




In case you don't recognize them as CKU models, a memory-refresher:





Mr. Hounsou is the face and body for the new CKU line Steel; Ms. Swank looks good in practically any CKU line, boxer briefs included, I'm sure.




Also at the event (did Hilary change her dress as often as her underwear?) was one of the other current CKU models, footballer Freddie Ljungberg. I suppose I should include a CKU ad or two with him, huh? Meh. OK:



I do like his ads with Natalia Vodianova much better..



Then again, I like Ms. Vodianova solo even better. CKU must, too; she even has her own room at their web site.




You wonder if their paring of Ljungberg & Vodianova isn't meant to recall a pair of CKU Past:







Kate Moss, about whom much has been written. We'll leave most of that to the gossip blogs, and we'll just remind you of her recent years with Agent Provocateur.





And the artist-formerly-known-as-Marky Mark, Mark Wahlberg.

Gee, with the attitude he's giving you in that ad, you have to wonder whatever happened to that guy..





Going down memory lane, there were also ads featuring actor and model Travis Fimmel..


But, for some reason, I'm much more partial to the CKU ads by the lovely Christy Turlington..



You may have noticed that the pictures of the ladies in their CKU are larger than the pictures of the guys. I figure I should address this, since the female readers of fufL would rather this not be the case - and, believe me, my girlfriend is not the only female reader of this blog. Put simply: It's my blog. As much as I may have an underwear fetish, I named the blog frankufotos Lingerie for a reason. I'd rather see my girlfriend - or any of these ladies in their Calvins than any of these guys. So there.

Getting back to the beginning of Calvin Klein Underwear, though.. you can read their official press release, but it's still hard for me to imagine how big a deal these ads must have been when they started two years before I was even born. Following on the heels of a jeans campaign starring Brooke Shields I've only seen on You Tube..



..you would have thought the world could have been happy Calvin Klein had put his resources toward making something to come between Brooke and her damn jeans (but, nooooooo..)

In fairness, since it was The Icon that started it all (and I wasn't aware it started with only Men's CKU, the ladies got theirs a few years later) we'll grant you one larger picture with a guy. For the story behind it, check out this article from The New York Observer's site and actor/model Tom Hintnaus' recollection on being in the first CKU ad: