A Quote by Francisco Costa

I didn't know who Calvin Klein was, really. But Brooke Shields, we knew her from those incredible commercials - "There's nothing between me and my Calvins." I knew very little about American fashion then. I had no money, and Charivari was very educational to me. And Parachute. I was fascinated by those stores. I couldn't buy anything; I just went through the clothes.
Of course, we always get references from the past, but that doesn't mean that the clothes have to look like the past. We need to look forward, which is why I'm fascinated by new materials, technologies, techniques, and unusual ways to use colors or textures. It's very applicable to Calvin Klein because Calvin Klein has always been about modern-ness.
One of my first fashion clients was Calvin Klein. We did his first freestanding stores. He was very exact and precise. But talk about high-fashion people who brand themselves!
I would never rep Versace. I can't stand her. I think she makes disgusting clothes. Calvin [Klein] is like, snore! Who wears Calvin Klein? I'm not dissing him. I think he's built an amazing, respectable business, but I would never want to work for Calvin Klein, ever.
Brooke Shields has been a child star and has grown into an incredible actress. She is very accomplished, and I look up to her. She had a mother's sense to her.
I was raised a Calvinist. You might think you know what that means, but let me explain it the way my mother preached it to my three sisters and me back when we were at home: 'I buy my girls Calvin Klein clothes, so that's all they know. Then, when they graduate from college, they have to figure out how to pay for them themselves.'
The most inspiring thing for me about Calvin Klein was how subversive the advertising's message was. That's what drove me in my creative process and also in my creating now. The new advertising campaign is Calvin Klein the way I see it today. It's also bringing back the kind of subversive element that I always saw in Calvin Klein's campaigns.
I didn't know anything about fashion. You would see me in the biggest sweater with jeans or the tightest elastic pants. Not nice clothes. My mom took me a lot to consignment stores when I was younger, and I never really got to go to fancy high-class stores, so... vintage was like a step up.
For those that don't know, my sister was born with Down Syndrome, and she was institutionalized in the very early sixties. Me, being just a small boy and being shuffled around between my mother and grandparents, I never knew her.
I knew how the suits used to talk about the artists, with barely concealed contempt. So I knew what was waiting for me round the corner. Because I wasn't one of those very unusual people like Neil Diamond or Elton John, whose careers just seem to span the decades. I knew I wasn't one of them.
I got to train with some of the best and have critics like Oscar de la Renta and Calvin Klein. As a student under Calvin Klein, my project was to make a coat, and then years later, I was hired at Calvin, by Calvin, to design coats for him. It came full circle!
I still think Brooke Shields is aces. She's really smart, interesting, doesn't feel that her time is more valuable than anyone else's. Really hardworking. And I knew that if she was the star of the show, it's going to be a good experience. And it was.
I don't feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don't have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you've got the money to be able to afford it, then it's really good to buy something from me, but don't buy too much.
I think I did a couple of test commercials that didn't even make it on the air. That's how little I had really done. I knew almost nothing about the camera. In fact, I actually did know nothing about the camera.
But in my defense, I knew enough about her to know I wanted to know everything else; I knew as much about her as she wanted me to know; I knew as much about her as anyone ever knows about anyone. And isn't love just curiosity at the beginning anyway?
I knew nothing about martial arts. And I don't really like it! But in the film, I not only had to pretend that I knew all about it, I had to be the best at it. That was very difficult.
I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally.
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