Calvin Klein was a genius by using gorgeous men almost naked to campaign his clothing

That picture has aged well, it doesn't look like it cames from the early 80s.

[quote]and it didn’t exist in the USA until 1982, not that long ago.

?? 1982 was a fucking longass time ago.

Granpa tighty whities. So HOTT!!

R2, how old are you? It seems like recent history to me.

R3 that is what our underwear was like then.

R2 not when you think of all the years women were used in ads to sell underwear etc.

r4 I'm in my mid-forties. Hardly a spring chicken. And 1982 was a LONG time ago! Hell, 1992 feels like ages ago.

R6, at DL you are the most chicken of chickens.

I can't believe 1982 still seems "recent" to some of the elders here. Wow.

Hintnaus was an Olympic pole vaulter, representing his native Brazil when the USA boycotted the 1980 Olympics.

what feels like a long time ago to some isn't much time at all to others.

I have a great memory and to me, it's not so much that the early 80s were recent, but I do remember them.

College. No internet. Living on my own.

Calvin Klein was big.

I know some folks who can't recall what they did two years ago.

Gorgeous [bold]small-dicked[/bold] gorgeous men.

And don't tell me about Mark "Athletic Sock" Wahlberg.

I think a lot of eldergays just kind of shut down in the early 90s and they've been completely out of touch ever since.

Kind of like how Mr. Burns on The Simpsons has never left the 1940s.

1982 was 39 years ago.

While long ago, it still isn’t that long ago when you think of how long it took for someone to say “let’s use male sexuality to sell products the way everyone else does women”.

Female underwear ads have been around since at least the 1940s. It took 40 years for someone to do it with a man

R11 average size dicks. Hate to break it to you but most men don’t have huge dicks

I so clearly remember fraternity men of the time were very preppy. Pink, Green and Khaki were popular fashion colors. They used hairspray to set their meticulously crafted their hair, they layered the popped collars while wearing two or three shirts at a time, they all wore Polo cologne, and none of them groomed their bushes in any way. I had a great time in college...

[quote] We have become conditioned to men underwear models etc. but forget there was a time that didn’t exist, and it didn’t exist in the USA until 1982, not that long ago.

No. Male underwear models have existed since the 1890's. And were quite common in the 1960's.

R16 not on National campaigns and weren’t billboards. They were just in magazines.

Correct, R17, but that's not what OP said.

There were racy menswear ads in the 70s including underwear.

Eminence did super sexy ads in the 70s.

Why do people like you, OP, made such declarative statements based on zero research! On pure ignorance. And you are so sure of yourself! Calvin Klein was just part of a long cultural shift.

Omfgggg those ads you all are speaking about were not National ads and weren’t on billboards or posters all over the country/world (CK ads were worldwide). They were only in magazines and usually local papers, nothing major.

That is not the same as having this image plastered over Times Square

[quote] Omfgggg those ads you all are speaking about were not National ads

Yes, they were, R22.

R23 no. They weren’t. You clearly don’t know what a National Campaign is

Check out the late 1960[s or early 1970's Sears catalog, men's underwear section. Some of the models even had stiffies.

But but but but OP has a theory! But OP knows his advertising history! But but but but but....

I will agree, however, OP, that CK was successful provocateur. He used scandalizing sex to move product and create his brand. I'm su saying he wasn't the first. Sheesh!!!!!

OP should just stick to thirsting after barely legal guys in Tik Tok. That's more his wheelhouse.

While there was an impact with high fashion in terms of that ad campaign, I feel a big shift happened that broadened the market and made it acceptable for more mainstream and ordinary guys to wear Calvin Klein underwear with the release of 1985s Back to the Future. Michael J Fox was well known for the TV show Family Ties, and although his character was somewhat an elitist preppy, he had an Everyman accessibly to both genders.

Back to the Future catapulted him to stardom and a key scene where his future mother thinks his name is Calvin Klein, since it written in his underwear was humorous, flirty and iconic. Guys who may never had thought of wearing Calvin Klein underwear before had their curiosity peaked by the sexy, yet chaste scene. And while the underwear was purple, that being over the top maybe even gave them more license since they would most likely be buying the classic white one. Michael J. Fox made it more acceptable for guys to spend the extra money that they would cost.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

I was a teenager in the 90's and Calvin was a huge force in shaping culture at that time as well. I realize that he started it all in the 80's of course, but by the very early 90's nearly naked Kate Moss and stunningly fuckable Marky Mark were everywhere - TV, magazines, etc. He certainly understood sex appeal (well, he and his creative team and famous photographers that is).

I will have to review the evidence before I can say for sure, but he sounds like a sinner. I will get back to you once I have seen enough to form a clear opinion.

The Jim Palmer Jockey underwear ads predate the Calvin Klein ads.

Those were not posters or billboards or commercials, meaning they were not massive National campaigns r33.

R33 that is a catalogue. They always had that stuff. Massive billboards over Times Square and in Hollywood didn’t n

OP, we're happy to chat about Kleins sexy models, we just don't like you very much with your try hard hyperbole.

A Sears catalogue is not a National campaign. Sears weren’t even in every state yet in the 70s and 80s.

This was the first National Campaign using a man in just underwear.

That scene in Back to the Future existed because of CK underwear becoming so huge because of this ad.

Here is the original ad billboard back in 1982

3 massive cultural impacts in 1982

r31, I remember well the popularity of Calvin Klein in the 90s at my high school. Guys and girls wore CK Jeans and the halls reeked of the CK1 fragrance. I gave my friend a CK t-shirt for her quinceañera.

I was 10 when that CK ad OP mentioned came out. It made me realize I was gay.I tore the pic out of a magazine and kept it for years.

OP doesn’t seem aware of how newsy and scandalous and ubiquitous the Jim Palmer Jockey ads were in the 70s.

R41 they were only in catalogs and local papers. Hardly even mass produced magazines

Wrong again, kid. Jim Palmer, famous sportsball guy, did not appear in “catalogs and local papers.” The ads appeared exclusively in national general interest consumer magazines like TIME and PEOPLE. SO much 1970s teen gay spunk spilled over those pictures.

Does the hot model in the opening post still model albeit as an older grandad type model or have a career in the public eye? He is so dreamy!

As a horny teen I spanked out many a load to this pic of Marky Mark. Back in those pre-Internet days you had to take what you could get.

[quote]Wrong again, kid.

I love how DLelders assume people who can't remember or weren't around in the 1970s are all "kids." There are middle-aged people who are too young to remember the 70s or they weren't even born yet.

Calvin Klein was the stuff of dreams. Then Tom Ford in the later 90's. No fatties. Unlike today.

Thus “kid,” kid at r46.

A 45 year-old is not a kid.

I was a child in 1982, but I remember this photo well. It ran for a very long time.

True r47. The general public was thinner in the 80s and 90s. Was it all the coke and smoking?

This is what Calvin Klein has come to.

R52, that looks like a MAD magazine parody of Calvin Klein....but it's real.

The Brooke Shields Calvin Klein ads came before the men's underwear ads. Not "naked," but very sexualized.

[quote] A 45 year-old is not a kid.

To a 75 year old he is.

R54 they were racy then and controversial. Her ads were banned on CBS because of the outrage from parents all over the country, meanwhile, CK sales skyrocketed and sold millions of pairs of jeans, I believe up to 2 million pairs in one month during those ads.

But those were jeans ads.

This was men’s underwear ads. Like Joan Collins said about this photo, “it doesn’t leave much up to the imagination”. And how prior to it you never saw a man in tight white briefs on a billboard for the world to see.

People were shocked. It literally caused a traffic jam after it was first put up in NYC.

I can only imagine the reaction and outrage to it in the Midwest and South (although apparently they were being torn down and stolen)

These threads used to be filled with very nice pictures.

Calvin Klein may (or may not) have started the trend, but by 1990's everyone else had spotted the market.

29x)ist, Aussie Bums, and countless other underwear makers began sexy (heavily gay eroticized) ad campaigns.

Much of this grew out of the whole metro-sexual movement in men's fashions and grooming which in turn grew out of straight men taking pages from gays.

Before CK took things mainstream there was International Male and similar catalogs showcasing attractive well built young men. These weren't your grandfather's Sears, Munsingwear or Fruit of the Loom underwear ads.

Gay porn in the late 80's, particularly films from Falcon, also did a lot to promote the wearing of Calvin Klein underwear.

Even with vintage men's or young boy's underwear adverts you rarely if ever got any sort or erotic sense, well not unless there was a female somewhere in the picture. And men featured ranged from handsome to decidedly average, with the latter taking up the most territory.

You have to remember last thing any mainstream menswear apparel company wanted for any of their lines back then was to be accused of having a "gay" vibe. Yes then and now we all know what was going on but that couldn't be main marketing point.

The "MTV Generation" caused a huge shift in how things were being marketed at teenagers and early 20 somethings. Marketing piggybacked on previous ploys to sell wares with sexualized nymphs like Brooke Shields. Calvin Klein's advertising managers pushed the envelope further.

CK originated the sexualization of men on ads. Most men were props in ads for women or covered up, selling suits or watches etc.

Now it was a gorgeous man with his dick out pretty much. CK started that trend that would become the norm in the 90s. But in the 80s it was new and shocking.

This ad helped skyrocket his sales, and by the late 80s/early 90s his sales were down again. Then came Marky Mark...

Klein made it mainstream. Before that gay themed and homoerotic ads were considered subversive, controversial, or plain niche.

Homoerotic ads could hurt a business. CK managers thought he was nuts when he said he wanted to do this kind of ad but he wasn’t having it.

CK picked Tom himself, who was an Olympian. He reached out to Tom and asked him to be his latest model. CK wanted to start selling men underwear the way his female underwear were selling, as well as his jeans (this was after the Shields controversial commercials took off and his jeans sales shot to the top) and he knew doing something like this would have everyone talking, whether good or bad, people would be talking and it would have attention, bringing attention to CK underwear. (Remember, this was pre-internet days where you had to really work to get your product out there)

Tom signed on as his newest model, despite never modeling and finding it all funny. He didn’t know he would be modeling underwear though.

On the day of the shoot Tom saw this young male model come out in these tight white underwear and he laughed and said he’s thankful it that guy and not him, because that is embarrassing, only for CK to turn to him and say “no, you’re wearing those”. Tom was shocked by this. He had never seen a major ad campaign of a man in just small, super tight white briefs and he feared he would be a laughing stock and his modeling career would be over as soon as it started. He also found it odd how the photographer kept taking shots from below him.

The shot we see is one of the first shots taken. CK saw it and said THAT IS IT. THAT IS OUR AD. He loved the shot and the expression on Tom’s face etc.

PS that was Tom just making that expression, he was instructed to.

LA Time article about the model and the photo that would have a cultural impact on mainstream media and pop culture

R44 no.

He lives in Hawaii and owns a contracting business there, which was always his goal to be a business owner. His business remodels homes and builds floating docks for private residences in Hawaii

He has been married at least 2 times (as of 2007 he was still with his second wife, i dont know if they’re still together) and has a few kids with both.

In 2017 he did wanna recreate his famous ad in his older age, however

The shot used for magazines

He’s still handsome. Just old

I always found CK briefs less sexy than Jockeys—they’re too thick and bunchy.

2002 was long ago. Anything PreTwitter is ancient

He brought us Marky Mark. Genius?

R71 yup

Marky Mark made the sales jump up by over 80% or something like that. And his runway routine got him attention from all top designers

[quote] average size dicks. Hate to break it to you but most men don’t have huge dicks

I do not buy that the average erect penis is 5.5", and I didn't believe when it was said to be 6.", just from my own personal experience. (and no I didn't pre-screen them).

This might be a global average but not in the U.S.

Remember the billboard is from before CK low-rise briefs were introduced.

R74 most men don’t have huge dicks. Please

R74 I don't want to get into a fight about it but I don't think that anything above 5.5" or 6.0" counts as huge.

My erect penis is about 1/8" below 6 inches and almost every guy I've ever had sex with has had a larger penis than I.

....

There's regular male average dick standard and then there's gay porn average dick standard. Guess which standard matters to the Gays.

There were sexy men's underwear ads in the 70s, at least in that 70s style of serious, smoldering gaze + mustache + laughably garish briefs. Calvin Klein was the first one to make sexy men's underwear ads that weren't ridiculous.

R79 unfortunately they think every man has what they see in porns

I've always been attracted to slim guys with natural bodies ( no tattoos, no piercings, no rings, no shaved pubic hair). I don't care for the pumped up , slick body of the model in CK ad. My tastes were set in stone as a GAYLING in the 1970's when men everywhere had slim, natural bodies.

81. I would say some of us fully expect what they see in porn.

Ads from different time periods represent the time's beauty aesthetic. Of course, what was considered hot or the ideal of that time looks alien to later generations who have a different idea about what is pretty or hot.

R84 the guy was considered hot in 1982 and would be considered hot in 2021

I thought that photo was so hot back in 1982, but by today's standards he looks good but not great, and those underpants look like diapers.

[quote]those underpants look like diapers.

Well, you're just going to have to get over that. Or stay a prissy sissy for the rest of your life.

r85, that's an exception. There are a few timeless classics, sure. But the general rule still stands.

He looks gorgeous, even by today’s standards.

He would be an ACTUAL model in 2021, not those Instahoes playing models

[quote] Well, you're just going to have to get over that. Or stay a prissy sissy for the rest of your life.

Zzzzzz...

No guy would be caught dead wearing tighty whities today.

R91 um use Google. Many still use them lmao

Calvin Klein is a total yutz who used his original business partner to learn the trade, then cut him out without a nickel to go out on his own. Immoral ass clown who deserves to go broke.

Not really r92. They're very outdated.

I remember when Sandra Bernhard said on Letterman that if you touch the poster in op you'll get AIDS.

I love the cut of CK underwear (although the name has now been licensed to Fruit of the Loom).

Where will I get my CK’s now that Century 21 is closed??

R96 their website

He is still pretty handsome today, for a man in his 60s

Great ad

James Reilly, the soap head writer, was a genius in this way; he opened many DAYS episodes with shirtless hottie Austin Peck in bed with Carrie. The camera would just linger on him as he stirred.

He tried loading up Passions with a series of hunks -- Jesse Metcalfe, Galen Gering, Ryan McPartlin -- but he could never get the numbers up on that show.

He really did set the standard