Fashion
The Raf Simons Era
Architecting the earned media strategy and PR launch of Netflix Originals — the announcement that changed how the world watches television
$100M+
Reported value of the House of Cards deal
$8B
Global CK brand sales under unified creative vision
Feb 10
NYFW debut — hottest ticket of the season
+9%
Projected brand revenue growth, FY 2017
Calvin Klein (PVH Corp.)
Senior Communications Leader, Calvin Klein
Global communications strategy, talent strategy & management, messaging development (creative + corporate), earned media, executive narrative, brand transformation. Key initiatives: Raf Simons appointment & onboarding; return of runway; launch of CK By Appointment atelier; 205W39NYC global rollout; all creative campaigns under Simons' direction.
August 2016–2018
2010
Netflix account engagement begins — ID PR brought on as agency of record as Netflix navigates the transition from DVD-by-mail to streaming platform and eyes a new chapter.
Mar 2011
Netflix Originals announcement — House of Cards deal breaks in Deadline as an exclusive. A streaming service outbids HBO and AMC for prestige content. Industry coverage is immediate and global.
2011
First-wave originals pipeline publicized — Lilyhammer, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and others announced and positioned in press as a coherent originals strategy, not isolated acquisitions.
Feb 2012
Lilyhammer premieres — the first Netflix Original to stream. Feb 6, 2012. All-episode binge model introduced. Press coverage frames it as the beginning of a new era in television.
2012
Orange is the New Black greenlit — Jenji Kohan's series commissioned. Early earned media groundwork laid as part of the sustained originals narrative being built in press.
Feb 2013
House of Cards S1 drops — 9 Emmy nominations. Netflix stock jumps 70% in the week prior. The PR infrastructure built over two years absorbs the moment and extends it.
A once-in-a-generation brand transformation
Calvin Klein in 2016 was a $3.1 billion business generating $8 billion in global branded sales — healthy by most measures, with a dominant position in underwear, denim, and fragrance. But its parent company PVH had watched competitors like Gucci explode after radical creative overhauls, and saw an opportunity to do the same: reunify all of Calvin Klein's creative output under a single visionary and elevate the brand's cultural standing globally. The vehicle for that ambition was Raf Simons — coming off a celebrated tenure at Christian Dior, widely regarded as one of the most intellectually rigorous designers working in fashion. In August 2016, he was named Calvin Klein's first-ever Chief Creative Officer, with complete creative authority over every brand category, from $20 briefs sold at Macy's to made-to-measure gowns crafted in the company's Midtown Manhattan atelier.
Communicating a transformation that hadn't happened yet
The communications challenge of the Raf Simons appointment was unique: we were announcing a transformation that existed only as an intention. The new collections hadn't been designed. The new brand aesthetic hadn't been defined. The atelier hadn't opened. And yet the announcement itself needed to land as a defining cultural moment — credible enough to move stock, compelling enough to recapture the fashion world's attention, and precise enough to manage the enormous uncertainty that comes with replacing two beloved creative directors simultaneously. We were selling a vision before the work existed to prove it.
Building the story in layers
We approached the Simons era as a sustained communications campaign with distinct chapters, each building on the last. Chapter one was the appointment itself — tight control of the announcement, selective media access to Simons, careful management of the narrative around Francisco Costa and Italo Zucchelli's departures. Chapter two was the surprise launch of CK By Appointment — a 14-look bespoke line dropped on social with no advance press, positioning Simons as operating outside fashion's traditional rhythms. Chapter three was the February 10 NYFW debut — the most anticipated show of the season, managed down to the front row composition and the post-show access strategy. Each chapter was designed to deepen the narrative rather than simply generate coverage.
The industry took notice
The February 10 runway debut was the hottest ticket of the season. Julianne Moore and Gwyneth Paltrow wore CK By Appointment to the Met Gala one month after its launch. In June 2017, Raf Simons won CFDA Designer of the Year for both Womenswear and Menswear — a double win, and a validation of the brand's cultural ambition. The 205W39NYC collection became a genuine fashion moment, with the Warhol Foundation collaboration and Sterling Ruby installations generating the kind of critical attention that hadn't surrounded Calvin Klein in years. Projected brand revenue growth for FY2017 came in at +9%.
The announcement that satisfies the algorithm is never the one that changes the conversation.
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