From “Unity” to “Orgy”: the new Calvin Klein ads

As promised, Calvin Klein kicks off 2009 with a set of buzzed about new videos: on the sweeter end, we witness the first televised CK One clip in fifteen years; on the edgier, kinkier end of the spectrum, we are treated to a new “shocking” Calvin Klein Jeans ad which makes Eva Mendes clip look downright innocent. We present you both below (warning: the second clip below is not safe for work).

First up: the new CK One Spring 2009 ad, featuring Coco Rocha, Heidi Mount, Guisela Rhein, 90s icon Kirsten Owen, Jamie Strachan, Sessilee Lopez, Romulo Pires, Caroline Ribeiro et al.
The commercial celebrates “unity”, as predicted. It also celebrates the hippie revivalism of Klein’s 90s heyday, making it doubly nostalgic. Flowing dreadlocks on the males? Check. Models busking through open fields to neo-folk ditties? “Free Love”? Check!

If that was a little too sunny for your liking, and you prefer your CK moments to be on the seedier, depraved side, then your jaded little heart should take dark delight in the new Calvin Klein Jeans ad, which has already been universally banned and features Anna Selezneva, Anna Jagodzinska and Natasha Poly — topless and limbs intertwined — majorly hooking up with some hot guy. And while we watch them, they also are watching a televised orgy. Which we are all watching online right now. The whole thing is very “meta”: how many layers of voyeurism are involved here? We lost count, but we get the point: we’re all peeping toms who rely on media artifice to find our own flesh & bone still stimulating. Conceptually, D & G have nothing on this.