The first images of “The Bear” actor Jeremy Allen White for Calvin Klein’s Spring 2024 campaign popped up on New York City billboards and bus stop shelters last week. Staged on a Big Apple rooftop, the bright blue sky and orange banquette seen in the eye-catching image took on a technicolor effect against the city’s gray winter scape.
But the dopamine-inducing color played a supporting role to the campaign’s real focus, however.
Arguably Calvin Klein’s most buzzed-about campaign in decades, the new launch features the shredded two-time Golden Globe winner showing off a notable physique clad in Calvin Klein underwear and playfully undone jeans. In other black-and-white images, White drops trou entirely, showing off the brand’s range of classic boxer briefs. An accompanying video follows the 32-year-old Brooklyn-born star peeling off activewear as he runs up flights of stairs for a rooftop workout in his skivvies.
Directed and photographed by Mert Alas and styled by Emmanuelle Alt, the campaign aims to showcase the native New Yorker’s connection to the city and “amplify his empowered energy” to Calvin Klein’s iconic styles, the brand stated.
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The campaign came as a jolt to the senses following the post-holiday slump. People, The Cut, GQ and Vogue quickly published articles dedicated to the stripped-down campaign on the day these skin-baring images launched on Jan. 4. Calvin Klein’s first Instagram post featuring two campaign photos garnered over 1.5 million likes, while fans commented “Yes, chef,” a lusty reference to his boss-man character in “The Bear,” the Hulu hit show with a 99 percent fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
By Sunday, the Calvin Klein campaign was the talk of Tinseltown at the Golden Globes, despite White going clinching a win for “Best Actor in a TV Comedy.” In just a week, the campaign has spawned countless opinion pieces on why society is comfortable objectifying men. Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority only highlighted this seeming hypocrisy when it banned a 2023 Calvin Klein ad featuring a partially nude FKA Twigs because it made the “Cellophane” singer a “stereotypical sexual object”.
But when it comes to visible underwear, the PVH Corp.-owned brand owns the space.
“There’s no doubt that Calvin Klein remains as the master of the trend and the go-to source in the eye of consumers,” said Kendall Becker, Trendalytics director of trend and editorial strategy. The trend intelligence platform reports that Calvin Klein saw a 102 percent increase in social actions (engagement and posts mentioning the brand) across platforms, thanks to the campaign starring America’s newest heartthrob.
According to Launchmetrics, the campaign generated $12.7 million in media impact value (MIV) for the brand in less than 48 hours, WWD reported.
In addition to being the first global thirst trap of 2024, the new campaign stirred up nostalgia for iconic ’90s Calvin Klein ads, particularly its iconic 1992 campaign with Marky Mark (a.k.a. actor Mark Wahlberg’s former rapper persona) and Kate Moss.
In the campaign, a topless Moss and shirtless Wahlberg both sport Calvin Klein underwear and significantly low-slung jeans—a “sagging” look that was synonymous with hip-hop stars in the ’90s. In 1995, Wahlberg walked the runway show in a similar outfit, memorably dropping his jeans at the end of the catwalk.
The Calvin Klein campaign magnified the laidback sex appeal of underwear and denim and became a blueprint that other brands copied. Dsquared2 channeled the ’90s era in its Fall/Winter 2023 men’s collection. The brand styled models in slogan tees and jeans worn low to expose their branded underwear. Country musician Riley Green sported Levi’s jeans with Gildan underwear in Rivet’s Winter 2023 issue.
The trend has carried into women’s fashion, too. For Spring/Summer 2022, Coach styled women in boxer shorts peeking over the waistbands of denim jeans and shorts. Meanwhile, Miu Miu, which re-ignited the low-rise trend in 2022, has embraced exposed underwear as a key branding opportunity.
“The rise in low-rise denim has set the stage for this trend to rise––it feels very fitting of the ’90s and early aughts era where we first saw this trend come into popularity,” Becker said.
Though she said the low-rise denim trend has already peaked, products are still entering the market that support the look. “Currently, market adoption of low-rise denim is up 62 percent to last year, proving that there’s still an interest from both brands and consumers,” she added.
Gen Z’s gravitation toward low-rise jeans and ’90s and aughts denim offers new opportunities for jeans brands to expand into underwear.
Australian streetwear brand Ksubi recently launched underwear. Designed to be a visible part of an outfit, the unisex boxer briefs are available in black, white and grey. The cotton briefs have a Ksubi-branded jacquard elastic waistband and signature 4×4 and T-box details. Ksubi shows male and female models wearing the undies with low-rise jeans.
Brands like Levi’s, Diesel, True Religion and Cult of Individuality also sell underwear collections. Telfar and Ugg collaborated recently on a collection of denim-inspired co-branded boxer briefs.
“With low-rise bottoms trending across both the men’s and women’s market, there’s undoubtedly opportunity for all markets to play into this rising trend,” Becker said.