But the taming of the supermodel has created a new problem: namely the availability of faces and forces hot enough to keep us buying those jeans and those T-shirts and those sunglasses. So what options emerge? Movie and music stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Foxxy Brown. And Calvin Klein, ever on the hilt of hip has gone there in the biggest way to date. (On New York's ever buzzing Houston Street, Foxxy Brown's CK poster is seven stories tall occupying the very spot that Kate used to rule).
Calvin Klein's investment in celebrity is a brilliant marketing move but its not the first time he has ventured in that territory.

In the late 70's the adolescent Brooke Shields put Calvin Klein on the map when the shared the burning fact that "nothing comes between me and my Calvin's " with the world. Marky Mark also jacked Klein up to the next level when he snapped his Calvin Klein underwear against his washboard stomach. Then there was Antonio Sabata Jr. in said underwear and even the pre-stardom Jada Pinkett has been known to surface in CK-1 ads. As a matter of fact the evidence would suggest Calvin Klein has long been a pioneer of the fashion-celebrity fusion. So where is the annoyed tone, the "this is not a good moment for the modeling industry" all about?

Last Fashion Week, the New York press got the fashion story of the year horrifically wrong. It had to do with Kate Moss' emergence from re-hab, a rehab deemed necessary after years of Kate's confessed drug and alcohol abuse. At the same time it was announced that Calvin Klein would not be renewing her exclusive contract. The media put it's two and two together and concluded that this was Klein's way of disapproving of Kate's soiled image. CALVIN DUMPS KATE blared the headlines but as is the way of the industry that was a mis-perception and in that "fashion moment" lies the key to deducing the point of Klein's dismissal of the current crop of models.
Kate Moss was not dismissed by Calvin Klein because she was in rehab. As a legal proposition, Moss' contract was due to expire at the end of 1998 and as early as August of that year, scores of stunning young girls had been summoned to the severe and church-like headquarters of Calvin Klein Inc, for Klein to give them the once-over. They would walk back and forth, turn this way, try this dress on, that bikini and as our sources reveal, he found much to amuse him.

One girl amused him more than any, a tall blonde Russian beauty with incredibly clear skin and a slightly alien, vaguely bulbous stare. Her name was Colette and she was locked in with New York Models, the hot boutique agency. Days after the Kate Moss drama, the press was fed the story that Calvin's new muse had been selected. Colette with three campaigns in her back pocket was booked exclusively for the Calvin Klein show in February of '99, ensuring that no other designer could use her for their runway. And promptly Edward Enninful, Fashion Editor of the English style bible and a former consultant to CK, books the instant star Colette to his April cover, passing over surefire sellers like Amber and Erin O' Conner. All the tracks are laid for Collette to emerge as the newest Calvin Klein icon. Then a funky thing happens. Collette disappears from the CK view. Instead we get a celebrity driven CK Jeans campaign.

Sources inform MODELS.com that like the film Rashoman, the different parties have a different, often conflicting tale to tell. Our contacts at Klein's showroom reflect the matter as a simple change of a whimsical mind. Calvin, apparently, got over Colette, no more no less. Our sources at New York Models, while trying to be delicate in their phrasing, however hint that negotiations collapsed over the issue of fees, since an exclusive contract usually suggests a seven-figure compensation. Wherever the truth lies, suffice it to say, Calvin was not amused.