Calvin Klein Collection Fall Looks (
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“You have to respect the house, but you’re expected to find your own voice,” Italo Zucchelli says of the difficult balancing act it takes to successfully take the reins of an iconic fashion brand. “Otherwise, you’re boring or too faithful to the house.”
Zucchelli is celebrating a milestone: ten years as men’s creative director for Calvin Klein Collection. He has incorporated bits of the company’s DNA, such as the sex appeal of its 1970s designer jeans disco-hedonism, melded them with the minimalism of its later era, and added his own magic.
“Throughout the last ten years, I’ve been doing things Calvin would never have done,” says Zucchelli. For instance, his use of bold and neon colors to expand Klein’s neutral palette, and his embrace of prints and out-of-the-ordinary materials like foam. His knockout fall collection features quilted overcoats and sweatshirts embellished with fine leather.
“I wanted to merge sportswear and formal,” Zucchelli says as he sips a glass of Sauvignon blanc, seated in a green leather booth at the private members’ club Soho House in the Meatpacking District. “We’re going from the office to a club or restaurant. This is modern living.”
Zucchelli speaks with a charming Italian accent, his sentences punctuated by constant hand gesturing. He lives nearby in West Chelsea, and can often be seen rollerblading along the Hudson River. He reserves his apartment as a strict living space. “I never work at home,” he says. “I’d never sketch or take a fabric home.”
Zucchelli, 48, has bright blue eyes, a shaved head and salt-and-pepper scruff. The first couple of buttons on his shirt (which he designed) are open, revealing a crystal dangling from a chain. “I used to see a shaman in Milan, he gave it to me,” Zucchelli explains. “We did rituals with drums and smoke.
“I’m an unusual animal; I’m aware of it,” he continues. “I’ve been meditating for 20 years every day. I have an army of acupuncturists and healers.” At first glance, his embrace of ancient mysticism doesn’t seem to mesh with the streamlined futuristic minimalism he creates. But a deeper look at his menswear certainly reveals a Zen vision.
Zucchelli moved to New York in 2000 to work at Calvin Klein (he had previously designed for Jil Sander). As design director, he worked closely with the house’s namesake before the company was sold to Phillips Van Heusen Corp. in 2002. Zucchelli took over for his boss. “I went into it in a very naïve way,” he says. “I wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ ”
His debut garnered positive reviews, and Klein attended the show to emphasize his support. “I played Johnny Cash’s version of Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus,’ ” he recalls with excitement. But some lows were unavoidable in a decade. “My least favorite collection was my fourth,” he says. “It was all velvet and kind of a gambler theme and just wrong.”
But he sees a point in his tenure as a turning point. “I was like, ‘OK, this is my new direction where I started experimenting with more technology and innovative fabrics.’ That was when there was a before and an after.”
In 2009, he won the CFDA award for best menswear designer. And he relishes the freedom of an era in which men’s style isn’t locked in a suit-and-tie conveyor belt.
“It’s a great time for menswear,” he says. “Men are more open and aware of fashion and you are allowed to do much more than before.”