On November 19, 1980, CBS banned a Calvin Klein jean advertisement featuring Brooke Shields. The television and print ad featured the 15-year-old starlet and model posed seductively in the skin-tight designer denim. In one of the TV ads, she asks the highly suggestive question, “Do you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
This provocative inquiry set the censors into a tizzy. ABC joined CBS and also banned the advertisement. However, the buzz around the first-ever high-fashion designer denim collection only boosted sales for the brand. It also landed Brooke Shields more fame and fortune. In 1981 alone, she was on the cover of over 30 magazines.
Before her iconic – and scandalous – Calvin Klein ad campaign, Shields was no stranger to controversy. She played a 12-year-old prostitute in “Pretty Baby” (1978) and was nude in 1980’s “The Blue Lagoon.” She went on to star in 1981’s “Endless Love,” but put a hold on her acting career to attend Princeton University in 1988. In 1996 Shields landed a hit television show, “Suddenly Susan,” in 1996 and has continued to act and model.
Also, Shields’ relationship with the Calvin Klein brand has recently been rebooted. At last winter’s New York Fashion Week, designer Raf Simons debuted his first Calvin Klein Collection with a nod to the iconic Brooke Shields ad. On the back pocket of the jeans and on a denim jacket, Simmons affixed an image of the 1980s Calvin Klein ad. And this summer, 37 years later, Shields reunited with Calvin Klein to model the brand’s sexy yet sporty lingerie line in the July issue of “Social Life” magazine.
See, not even time can come between Shields and her Calvins!