Calvin Klein Collection had more than a new batch of clothes to celebrate last night: namely, ten years at the helm for designer Francisco Costa and the release of a new fragrance, Downtown. Accordingly, the label scaled its usual end-of-fashion week festivities way up. A huge crowd descended to the Tribeca party venue, where the house seemed to have outfitted enough A-listers and models for a second runway show. There was even a tailor on-site. When Hanneli Mustaparta tore her archival dress stepping out of the cab, he fixed her up—a first, she noted. “I’ve never been sewn together on my way inside!”
No details were left uncovered. In Costa’s world, that often means attentive reductionism. The cavernous party room was as stripped down as possible, with nary an intrusive light fixture or visible bottle at the bar. “It is minimalist,” Costa said of the event. “But it’s maximalist, because of the people.” That roster included Nicole Kidman, Pharrell Williams—who performed with a gaggle of dancers pulled from the audience—and Rooney Mara, whose spot for Downtown (directed by David Fincher) is suddenly all over New York’s taxi cab TVs.
Of course, the girl with the Dragon Tattoo on her résumé is no stranger to the spotlight. But a CK campaign brings a slightly different sort of exposure. “It’s overwhelming,” recalled Alexander Skarsgard, who starred in one earlier this year. “I remember when it came out; I was in New York and I saw that huge wall with the billboard on Houston Street. I looked like Godzilla there.”
Men’s designer Italo Zucchelli celebrated his decade-long tenure with the house in June, in Milan. “You see what you’ve done, see what you want to do,” he noted. “You see it really went fast.” And Mara, what was she up to ten years ago? “I was 18 and starting my first semester at George Washington University,” the actress recalled. The prospect of one day being a fashion star, she added, “was not on my mind at all.”
