I’ve coated males’s vogue campaigns from entrance rows in Milan, Florence, London, and New York since 2009. I first printed this listing throughout a Milan Trend Week resort room session in 2014 with 10 names. It’s been up to date 11 occasions since. I’ve attended Calvin Klein displays and spoken with stylists and inventive administrators concerned in a number of campaigns mentioned under. – By Gracie Opulanza • Editor-in-Chief, MenStyleFashion
A 21-year-old rapper in white briefs. A photographer named Herb Ritts. A billboard in Instances Sq.. That was 1992. Calvin Klein had been making underwear for years, however Mark Wahlberg turned it right into a dialog that lasted three a long time.
Since then, CK has run over 30 main male underwear campaigns. Some turned cultural occasions. Others disappeared inside per week. The distinction between the 2 isn’t price range or fame — it’s a casting intuition that I feel follows a particular, repeatable sample. After monitoring these campaigns throughout 11 years of vogue protection, I’ve reverse-engineered what I imagine is CK’s three-part casting check. I’ll lay it out on the finish of this piece, together with my predictions for who they’ll signal subsequent.
First: the rankings. Organised by affect, not date. Argued with, not simply listed.
The Full Rating at a Look
| # | Mannequin | 12 months | Marketing campaign | Photographer | Verdict |
| 1 | Mark Wahlberg | 1992 | CK Underwear | Herb Ritts | Invented the style |
| 2 | Jeremy Allen White | 2024 | CK Underwear | Mert Alas | 1.7M likes in 10 days |
| 3 | Travis Fimmel | 2001 | CK Underwear | — | Billboard eliminated for security |
| 4 | Dangerous Bunny | 2025 | Icon Cotton Stretch | Mario Sorrenti | First international CK marketing campaign |
| 5 | Justin Bieber | 2015 | #MyCalvins | Mert & Marcus | Most worthwhile system |
| 6 | Djimon Hounsou | 2007 | CK Underwear | — | Greatest pictures of any CK shoot |
| 7 | Aaron Taylor-Johnson | 2023 | Calvins or Nothing | Mert & Marcus | Greatest directed in a decade |
| 8 | Michael B. Jordan | 2023 | CK Underwear | — | Creed synergy accomplished proper |
| 9 | Trevante Rhodes | 2017 | #MyCalvins | — | Quickest cultural learn |
| 10 | Fredrik Ljungberg | 2005 | CK Underwear | — | The Beckham counter-punch |
| 11 | Idris Elba | 2024 | CK Menswear | — | Mature aspiration |
| 12 | Jamie Dornan | 2009 | CK Underwear | — | Casting intuition, not marketing campaign |
| 13 | Cha Eun-Woo | 2024 | CK Menswear | — | Engagement off the charts |
| 14 | Cooper Koch | 2025 | CK Summer time | — | Too early to rank |
| 15 | Antonio Sabato Jr. | 1990 | CK Underwear | — | The pilot episode |
1. Mark Wahlberg (1992)
Herb Ritts. Black and white movie. A rapper no one over 30 had heard of. That’s all it took.
Neil Kraft, Calvin Klein’s Senior VP on the time, has advised the story publicly: his crew noticed Wahlberg on a Rolling Stone cowl, already shirtless, already cocky, and known as him in. The pairing with Kate Moss got here from Calvin Klein personally. Moss was 17, rail-thin, and embodied a totally completely different vitality. Standing subsequent to Wahlberg’s muscular body, the distinction was so stark the pictures virtually vibrated.
I’ve spoken with two vogue editors who had been working in New York when these billboards appeared in Instances Sq.. Each used the identical phrase unprompted: confrontational. Earlier than Ritts pointed a digital camera at Wahlberg, males’s underwear was offered by means of division retailer catalogues. Useful. Invisible. Ritts and Wahlberg made it a declaration.
Thirty-two years later, each marketing campaign on this listing continues to be chasing the vitality of these images.
Verdict: Not the very best CK underwear marketing campaign. The solely CK underwear marketing campaign. Every little thing else is a variation.
2. Jeremy Allen White (2024)
January 2024. Calvin Klein posts a 30-second video: White climbing a fireplace escape, pulling off a tank high, stepping out of denims. Briefs. Rooftop. New York skyline. Inside hours, the web had a collective episode.
1.7 million Instagram likes in 10 days. The phrase “regarding to feminism” entered the lexicon. “Sure chef” turned an underwear commentary. I watched the numbers from my cellphone in a London cab and genuinely thought the metrics had been glitching.
Right here’s what I feel CK’s crew understood that made this work: White doesn’t appear like a mannequin. He’s compact. His face carries stress. He appears like he hasn’t slept correctly in per week and doesn’t care. That’s precisely what made The Bear compelling, and Mert Alas was good sufficient to {photograph} him the identical means — no softening, no airbrushing into generic attractiveness. The marketing campaign offered an vitality, not a physique sort.
That distinction issues. Wahlberg offered aspiration: I wish to appear like that. White sells one thing nearer to recognition: I do know somebody who appears like that. Each are highly effective. They only work on completely different audiences.
Verdict: The very best-engagement CK marketing campaign since 1992. And in contrast to Wahlberg’s, now we have the information to show it.
3. Travis Fimmel (2001–2003)
No one knew who he was. An Australian surfer, found at a Melbourne gymnasium, with no appearing credit and no public profile. Calvin Klein put his face on a Instances Sq. billboard, and the town of New York requested them to take it down as a result of drivers saved crashing.
That story has been confirmed by individuals who labored the marketing campaign and by contemporaneous press protection. The billboard stayed up for shut to 2 years regardless — CK simply moved it to areas with much less vehicular site visitors. Fimmel’s look was a clear break from Wahlberg: sun-bleached, boyish, extra surfer than fighter. A distinct decade wished a unique form of man, and CK learn that precisely.
What I discover most outstanding about Fimmel’s trajectory is the ratio of anonymity to fame. He went from stacking cabinets in Australia to the only most seen promoting picture in Manhattan in below a yr. Then he did Vikings and the world forgot he’d ever been a mannequin. The CK marketing campaign exists on this unusual pocket of time the place the style trade handled him just like the second coming after which he vanished into a totally completely different profession.
Verdict: The purest check case for CK’s potential to fabricate fame from nothing. No one has replicated this since.
4. Dangerous Bunny (2025)
Mario Sorrenti. Mirrors. Stark backdrops. Tattoos and a stare that doesn’t blink. Nothing about this marketing campaign tried to make Dangerous Bunny appear like any earlier CK mannequin, and that was your entire level.
I used to be at a showroom occasion in New York when the marketing campaign photos dropped on screens across the room. The response break up completely alongside generational strains. Individuals below 30 shrugged: in fact Dangerous Bunny is doing Calvin Klein, who else wouldn’t it be? Individuals over 40 regarded barely startled. That division is an indication the casting labored. If everybody nods in settlement, you’ve performed it protected. If half the room is shocked and the opposite half is validated, you’ve discovered the sting.
The Icon Cotton Stretch line itself is price mentioning as a result of CK doesn’t all the time match the suitable product to the suitable face. Dangerous Bunny’s vitality — unapologetic, bodily, Latin American — suits a performance-focused underwear line higher than it will have match, say, the basic cotton fundamentals. Somebody at CK thought of that, and it made the marketing campaign really feel cohesive moderately than transactional.
Verdict: CK’s first marketing campaign that felt designed for a world viewers moderately than exported from an American one.
5. Justin Bieber (2015–2019)
The picture issues lower than the structure. When CK launched #MyCalvins with Bieber and Kendall Jenner in 2015, they constructed a participation engine that each vogue model copied inside 18 months and none of them ran as successfully.
The marketing campaign hit throughout Bieber’s Objective rollout, when his crew was actively reshaping him from tabloid legal responsibility into grownup artist. CK provided credibility and mainstream intercourse attraction concurrently — a tough mixture to fabricate, and Bieber was one of many few celebrities who wanted each at that precise second. In return, CK received the #MyCalvins hashtag seeded throughout Bieber’s viewers, which turned each fan who posted a mirror selfie of their underwear into unpaid promoting. The industrial affect on underwear gross sales was reportedly vital within the quarters following launch.
He got here again in 2019 with Hailey. Couple vitality, softer styling, decrease voltage. Diminishing returns, which is the standard sample with sequel campaigns.
Verdict: The marketing campaign the place CK discovered the right way to flip celeb endorsement right into a self-replicating system. Not the very best {photograph} on this listing, however the smartest enterprise choice.
6. Djimon Hounsou (2007)
I’m rating this increased than most individuals would, and I’m doing it intentionally.
Hounsou got here to CK straight off an Academy Award nomination for Blood Diamond. He wasn’t a musician or a heartthrob or a social media determine. He was an actor with a Beninese-American background, a physique constructed for movie roles moderately than vogue campaigns, and a presence that made the digital camera work tougher than it normally has to in an underwear shoot.
The photographs from this marketing campaign have a top quality that not one of the others on this listing share: stillness. The place Wahlberg was confrontational and Fimmel was effortlessly charming, Hounsou’s images really feel composed. Virtually sculptural. I first encountered them in a males’s journal round 2008, and I bear in mind the particular bodily response of pausing mid-page-turn as a result of the picture demanded a re-examination. That doesn’t occur usually with industrial promoting.
No one talks about this marketing campaign anymore, and that’s incorrect. The pictures is among the many strongest in CK’s total historical past.
Verdict: Essentially the most artistically achieved CK underwear shoot. Ought to be studied, not footnoted.
7. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (2023)
Two campaigns dominated CK’s 2023 output: Jordan’s and this one. Jordan received the press. Taylor-Johnson received the higher inventive work.
Mert & Marcus shot the “Calvins or Nothing” idea, and the accompanying video — Taylor-Johnson dancing to “Conflict” by The Blaze — is the only finest piece of movie content material CK has produced for an underwear marketing campaign. It’s tense, bodily, barely unsettling. The form of factor you watch twice not as a result of it’s nice however as a result of it’s gripping.
Bond rumours had been swirling round Taylor-Johnson on the time, which loaded the pictures with a cost they wouldn’t have carried in any other case. CK’s casting crew both knew that or received fortunate. Given their observe file, I’d guess on the previous.
Verdict: The hole between what this marketing campaign achieved creatively and the way little consideration it acquired is the most important injustice on this listing.
8. Michael B. Jordan (2023)
Creed III opened March 3, 2023. The CK marketing campaign photos had been already circulating. Jordan’s physique was the most-discussed physique in Hollywood that month, and Calvin Klein positioned themselves instantly inside that dialog. Textbook timing.
What I revered about Jordan afterwards was his refusal to be polished about it. His GQ interview was disarmingly trustworthy: “My guys, they discuss shit. It’s essentially the most most likely exposing pictures that I’ve had to date in my profession.” That quote did extra for the marketing campaign’s authenticity than any quantity of artwork route may have. When the individual within the underwear admits they discovered it barely embarrassing, the viewers relaxes. It stops being a fragrance advert and begins being a human second.
Verdict: Received on persona greater than pictures. Jordan’s candour after the actual fact was the true marketing campaign.
9. Trevante Rhodes and the Moonlight Solid (2017)
February 26, 2017. Moonlight wins Greatest Image in an Oscar ceremony so chaotic that Warren Beatty by accident proclaims the incorrect movie. Inside weeks, 4 of the movie’s stars are in a Calvin Klein marketing campaign.
Rhodes was photographed shirtless. The opposite three weren’t. The photographs had been attractive, however what I maintain coming again to is the decision-making velocity. CK’s crew learn the cultural second — a small, stunning movie about Black id and masculinity profitable Hollywood’s largest prize — and acted earlier than anybody else in vogue may reply. That form of intuition can’t be focus-grouped.
I additionally suppose this marketing campaign quietly expanded what a CK underwear shoot may imply. Earlier than Rhodes, the campaigns had been about want. This one was about significance. These two issues aren’t the identical, and the truth that CK may maintain each is a credit score to whoever made the decision.
Verdict: The quickest and most culturally clever casting choice in CK’s historical past.
10. Fredrik Ljungberg (2005) and the Drawback With Athlete Campaigns
Emporio Armani signed David Beckham for a reported £20 million. Underwear gross sales jumped. Calvin Klein wanted a solution, they usually discovered Fredrik Ljungberg — an Arsenal midfielder with blonde hair, tattoos, and a lean European construct that learn utterly in another way from the American muscular archetype.
Ljungberg’s marketing campaign was glorious. His private fashion already overlapped with vogue tradition, and the pictures had a sporty confidence that felt pure moderately than pressured. The issue got here afterwards, when CK tried to repeat the components with different athletes and largely failed.
Rafael Nadal (2010) had the physique however not the visible persona. The CK photos made some of the ferocious rivals in sports activities historical past appear like a division retailer model. Evaluate that to how Nike images him — sweat, fury, purple clay — and the hole is embarrassing. Hidetoshi Nakata (2010) was an fascinating choose as a result of his post-football reinvention as a vogue determine made him a pure match, however the marketing campaign was too quiet to register outdoors Asia. Son Heung-min (2023) follows the Ljungberg template extra carefully — Premier League star with worldwide attraction — however the outcomes haven’t had the identical affect.
The lesson: athletes work for CK solely when their private id already overlaps with vogue. When CK tries to borrow athletic fame and paste it onto a vogue context, the seam reveals.
Verdict: Ljungberg was the suitable choose. Most of his successors inherited the template with out the substance.
11–15: The Remaining Rankings
11. Idris Elba (2024) — A Completely different Sort of Need
Idris Elba was 51 when his CK menswear marketing campaign dropped. The styling didn’t disguise that. It celebrated it — maturity, composure, the physique language of somebody who hasn’t wanted to impress anybody in a very long time.
There’s a big viewers of males over 35 who purchase Calvin Klein merchandise and have by no means seen themselves in CK’s promoting. Elba’s marketing campaign acknowledged their existence. That shouldn’t really feel revolutionary, however given the model’s historical past, it was.
Verdict: Expanded what CK aspiration can appear like. Lengthy overdue.
12. Jamie Dornan (2009) — The 5-12 months Fuse
Normal CK components. Nothing outstanding in regards to the photos themselves. However Calvin Klein’s casting crew recognized Dornan half a decade earlier than Fifty Shades of Gray made him globally well-known. When that occurred, these photos resurfaced throughout each tabloid and leisure web site concurrently. A marketing campaign that accrued worth retroactively.
Verdict: Unremarkable pictures. Exceptional intuition.
13. Cha Eun-Woo (2024) and Jungkook (2023) — The Numbers Sport
Eun-Woo’s fall 2024 menswear marketing campaign and Jungkook’s 2023 CK Denims marketing campaign are finest understood as data-driven choices moderately than inventive ones. Okay-pop fandoms produce engagement metrics that dwarf something Western celebrities generate on a per-post foundation. Eun-Woo’s CK content material reportedly outperformed most different model campaigns that quarter on social platforms throughout Asia.
The pictures was skilled and product-focused. Clear, well-lit, optimised for the platforms the place the viewers lives. Inventive ambition was not the target. Viewers acquisition was.
Verdict: Good enterprise. Sufficient promoting.
14. Cooper Koch (2025) — The Pipeline Decide
Koch adopted the established CK pipeline: breakout position (Ryan Murphy’s Monsters), cultural buzz, underwear marketing campaign. His summer time 2025 shoot was well-received, however I can’t rank him confidently but as a result of the marketing campaign is just too new and his profession arc is unwritten. He could possibly be the subsequent Fimmel. He could possibly be the subsequent Lutz. I genuinely don’t know.
Verdict: Examine again in 12 months.
15. Antonio Sabato Jr. (1990) — The Proof of Idea
Earlier than Wahlberg, Sabato. The Basic Hospital star test-drove celeb underwear promoting two years earlier than it turned a cultural phenomenon. His marketing campaign carried out nicely sufficient that CK determined to go larger subsequent time. With out that information level, there might not have been a subsequent time.
Verdict: Not the star of the present. The explanation the present received renewed.
Additionally on the Report
Kellan Lutz (2010) — Twilight-to-CK pipeline. Predictable, skilled, forgettable.
Mehcad Brooks (2010) — True Blood display screen presence translated nicely to stills. Higher than his profile suggests.
Shawn Mendes (2019) — #MyCalvins “My Fact.” Competent. Nicely-lit. Vanished from reminiscence inside weeks.
Brandon Flynn (2023) — Satisfaction and vacation campaigns. Constant LGBTQIA+ illustration from CK.
Dominic Fike (2021) — The anti-underwear-ad. Introspective, low-energy, forgotten.
Brandon Stoughton (2008) — The Britney “Womanizer” connection. Temporary, buzzy, gone.
Jacob Elordi (2019, 2021) — Core necessities. Polished. Improved retroactively after Euphoria and Saltburn.
How Calvin Klein Picks: The Three-Half Casting Check
After 11 years of monitoring these campaigns, I imagine CK’s underwear casting follows a particular, repeatable logic. It’s by no means been formally acknowledged, however the sample holds throughout each profitable marketing campaign on this listing. Those that miss are inclined to fail at a number of of those three assessments.
Check 1: The individual is mid-crossover
Not already well-known. Not unknown. Crossing over. Wahlberg was crossing from rap into mainstream celeb. Fimmel was crossing from anonymity into visibility. White was crossing from revered actor into web fixation. Dangerous Bunny was crossing from Latin celebrity into international omnipresence.
When CK nails the timing, the marketing campaign feels such as you’re discovering the individual alongside the model. After they’re late — signing somebody whose crossover peaked six months in the past — the marketing campaign looks like a reserving, not an occasion. The distinction is all the things.
Check 2: The physique communicates id, not simply health
Wahlberg’s physique stated road. Hounsou’s stated sculpture. White’s says coiled depth. Fimmel’s stated Australian seashore. Dangerous Bunny’s says I don’t carry out to your consolation. Every physique carries a story.
The campaigns that stall are those the place the physique is match however impersonal — symmetrical, lean, interchangeable with every other athletic determine. When there’s no story within the physique, there’s no hook within the picture.
Check 3: The viewers already feels one thing
Fame isn’t the identical as emotional funding. Bieber’s followers had years of parasocial attachment. Jordan’s viewers had rooted for him by means of Creed and Black Panther. White’s viewers had developed an obsessive, protecting affection for Carmy in The Bear. Dangerous Bunny’s fan base operates with near-devotional depth.
That is why skilled fashions not often headline CK’s largest campaigns anymore. A mannequin is a face. A star with an emotionally invested viewers is a pressure multiplier.
Who’s Subsequent: My Predictions
Making use of the three-part check to the present panorama, I’d look ahead to:
A breakout actor from a 2025–26 status sequence who’s producing the form of intense viewers attachment White had throughout The Bear’s run. Koch could also be this choose, however the discipline is extensive.
A Latin American or African musician with real international crossover momentum. Dangerous Bunny opened the door. CK will stroll by means of it once more with somebody from a unique regional music scene.
A System 1 driver. The game’s viewers has exploded since Drive to Survive, and the drivers carry the precise mixture of bodily charisma and fandom depth that CK’s check requires. Charles Leclerc or Lando Norris would match the template exactly.
I’ll replace this part when the subsequent marketing campaign drops.
Often Requested Questions
Who was the primary Calvin Klein underwear mannequin?
Antonio Sabato Jr. fronted the primary main celebrity-led CK underwear marketing campaign in 1990, two years earlier than Mark Wahlberg’s era-defining shoot.
Who’s the present Calvin Klein underwear mannequin?
As of early 2026, the newest main male marketing campaign faces are Dangerous Bunny (spring 2025, Icon Cotton Stretch, photographed by Mario Sorrenti) and Cooper Koch (summer time 2025).
Does Calvin Klein use skilled fashions or celebrities?
Each, however CK’s highest-profile underwear campaigns have overwhelmingly featured celebrities, athletes, and actors since 1992. Skilled fashions seem extra regularly in runway and catalogue work.
What was essentially the most viral Calvin Klein males’s underwear marketing campaign?
Jeremy Allen White’s January 2024 marketing campaign, which accrued roughly 1.7 million Instagram likes in its first 10 days, is essentially the most measurably viral CK underwear marketing campaign within the model’s historical past.
