The wait is over. After a six-year runway hiatus, Calvin Klein made a highly anticipated return earlier this week, orchestrated by Veronica Leoni, who took her seat at the table last May. Staging her spectacle as the first female creative director of the brand, Leoni placed emphasis on reimagining staple silhouettes with a cadence of refined applications, executed by utilising three primary silhouettes that were akin to archival Calvin Klein. Leoni stated her intentions for the brand clearly: “My goal is to define an ultimate and definitive expression of monumental minimalism and pureness through shape and craft, bringing Mr. Klein’s original vision and distinctive approach into the current day.” Her collection held true to this sentiment, with a design language that was an homage to 1990s minimalism, an era which Calvin godfathered.

Before Calvin Klein, Leoni lent her plethora of skills to The Row, Phoebe Philo’s Celine and Jil Sander, each of which instilled in the Italian an apt understanding of subtle, albeit distinct, house codes and savoir-faire. Her own label, Quira, has also allowed her to play with her creative propensities since its inception in 2021. (Quira was nominated as an LVMH Prize finalist two years ago.)

Leoni's debut was staged at the brand's original headquarters in the Fashion District. Each garment danced between traditional construction and material innovation, with quintessential New York stylistic strokes seen through tailoring that defied our understanding of hegemonic office attire. The collection acted as a palate cleanser, starting off with mock-neck tunic dresses accentuated with broad shoulders and elongated sleeves. A slew of fluid suiting followed, distinguished by sunken necklines, asymmetrical lapels and exaggerated sleeves, which served as a soft nod to ‘blurred biological logic,’ a concept that she alludes to through subverting conventional tropes of sexiness to reimagine the concept as an attitude. A healthy amount of knitted Henley was spotted on the runway, exercised in shrunken wool sweaters, contrasted by pinstriped pencil skirts and leather bombers to inject a sense of sensuality.

In her collection, Leoni explores the interplay between business and pleasure, mastering the art of day-to-night dressing with a wardrobe designed for 24/7 dressing. She executes this notion with an air of flirtation and restraint evidenced through cowl necks and draped shawls as well as wrapped lapel blazers and relaxed denim. The show was relatively bereft of colour, honing in on a repetition of subdued tones of monochromatic greys. An amalgamation of second-skin gabardine trenches, croc-embossed suede bags and cashmere accents made it clear that minimalism no longer translates to tedium.

The collection was an antidote to a vestimentary overhaul, acting as more of a trickle-down in a wider marketing strategy to re-enter the brand. Leoni’s artistic handling places a focus on the consumer rather than the viewer, reiterating ideologies of effortlessness and functionality. With heritage anchored at the epicentre, the collection proved continuity of the brand's DNA while leaving room for a metamorphosis to unfold under new authorship.