This book describes the life and career of Calvin Klein, one of the more influential fashion designers in the last 30 years. The book is laid out in chronological order, beginning with Klein's childhood, education, early career, and his recent status as a fashion heavyweight and pop icon.
The book focuses more on his career, and how the fashion industry as a whole has affected and was affected by him. For those looking for gossip about Klein or his associates, this book will not provide it. What it does provide is an inside glimpse of how the fashion industry works. Klein is unique in that he has been involved in just about every aspect of the Western fashion industry some time or another in his life; whether it be making designs, creating supply chains, maintaining an actual clothing store, running a fashion company, selecting models, putting together ad campaigns, dealing with media, etc.. As such, this book covers all these different aspects and shows the failures and successes of one man, Calvin Klein, in each of these sectors of the business.
The book also shows the conflicts between the big egos in fashion, how these conflicts play out, and how they affect employees of the fashion industry, and us the consumers. Last, the book gives a good idea of how money is divied up within the fashion world. Specifically, when someone buys an article of clothing at a store, that money gets divided among many different parties, and this book shows how that is done.
Overall, I am glad I read it. Nearly everyone in America is affected by the fashion industry, yet so few of us know anything about it. Reading this book helped changed that for me. I only give it three stars because for all the pluses of this book; I found it boring. Maybe I am just not interested in fashion.
