Calvin Klein's spring line brings fashion industry towards post-heroin chic

Anyone flipping through the latest issue of Vogue or Elle is bound to notice the copious number of glossy pages devoted to the lavish ad campaigns of fashion's leading designers. It's no surprise that the amount of these pages far outweighs those granted to actual articles or couture spreads.

Yet few readers have an actual problem with the number of ads packed into each issue. If they're a little like me, they might even flip through these pages with glee, and rather shamefacedly avoid those laden with print. After all, the ultimate intent of any article in any fashion magazine is to tell the reader how to look and dress. And the vast majority of advertisements communicate this information at a single glance.

The real question doesn't seem to ask how valid this multitude of ads is. The issue seems instead to be a question of how the individual designer can manage to capture the attention – and later the purse – of the typical reader. And as has just previously been noted, the competition is fierce indeed.

In this cutthroat, multi-million dollar jungle of advertising, Calvin Klein has managed not merely to stay afloat, but to succeed time and time again. Klein's ads can at times be rather risqu?.

Who can forget the scandalous affair with his foray into kiddie-porn? Or little Brooke, telling the world that nothing came between her and her Calvin Klein jeans? Or even Antonio Sa-bato, Jr. in his underwear? Klein has always banked on the average individual's desire for a little taste of the racy and the forbidden.

And he has always managed to provoke talk, and even, at times, controversy – a controversy that gets his ads noticed and his wares sold.

There is, of course, the famous face that goes with the cK label, that of the most waifish waif of them all, Kate Moss. Apparently a permanent fixture with Klein ads, Moss' face has sold an image of heroin chic to millions across the globe.

Take a look at the ads of recent years. There's Kate, looking a little under the weather, slouching against a brick wall in some forlorn city alley. There's Kate, eye makeup perfectly smeared, showing the world just how good jeans can look (on the right body and with the right face, that is). There's Kate, tossing her matted, uncombed hair back, showing off those glorious cheekbones to greater effect.

And so, with the spring '98 Calvin Klein ad campaign, the saga continues. Except the state of affairs with Kate seems to have changed a bit. One might even say she has undergone some sort of rehab treatment and is currently reveling in a newfound joy for life.

Gone is the heavy makeup that had a rather unfortunate tendency to smear. Gone is the mess of matted hair. Gone the painful, angst-ridden expression.

Here's a new Kate, taking a little hike with a group of her beautiful friends. Face freshly scrubbed, camping gear attached to her back, waves of blonder (yes, her hair is certainly blonder than previously) hair spilling down her back, she tramps along, perfectly outfitted for hiking in a Calvin Klein denim miniskirt and flip-flops. Klein has beaten his fellow designers to the wire with the creation of an image of "post-heroin chic."

Other ads evoke an even more overtly surreal style. Consider, for example, the outdoors lineup of a sleekly dressed Kate and pals, one of whom comfortably reclines in a tree. There is clearly an evident incongruity throughout the ads, making it clear that Klein is approaching this new "outdoorsy" genre with more than a little distance as well as a great deal of humor.

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Realism is not exactly the objective here. Klein's ads are undoubtedly suffused with a certain amount of self-consciousness. If there is any designer who is aware of the fact that these ads are merely a game with very high stakes, it's him.

So, in this latest advertising tour de force, Klein seems to have chosen to mock the very self-consciousness of his own past ad campaigns. The newest installment of ads couldn't be said to do anything but gently poke fun at the heroin chic Klein himself peddled in the past. Klein makes these images of "the great outdoors" ostentatiously and unrealistically glamorous – as unrealistically glamorous as his images of heroin chic were.

At the same time, the ads form a lineup of gentle parodies, mocking the campaigns of his fellow designers. Though these images most clearly poke fun at the campaigns ?la Tommy Hilfiger, Guess? or Abercrom-bie and Fitch, they also allude to the ultra-chic styles of Dolce & Gabbana or Gucci, as well as Versace's new construction worker models. More than a couple ads seem to merge these utterly incongruous designs together to produce an image that is undeniably Calvin Klein.

In the ad campaign for just one season, Klein manages to subvert not only his past signature style but the images an entire industry propagates. There is no doubt that the fine art of advertising is one on which the mythic status of the fashion industry depends. Having debunked that mystery, one might wonder what is left for Klein to do.

But, come next fall, you can bet that the Calvin Klein ads will make you stop and look as you flip through the latest heavy issue of Vanity Fair.