Original Source: Chicago Tribune
Author: Heidi Stevens
Calvin Klein has a long history of walking right up to the line separating provocative from perverse, and this time the company has crossed it.
The clothing brand’s new ad features 23-year-old Danish model Klara Kristin looking down toward the ground as a camera peeks up her dress, showing a sliver of her Calvins.
“Calvin Klein keeps pushing out garbage and using sexual exploitation to make a profit,” said Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). “Everyone is concerned with curbing sexual harassment in our culture right now, and they took advantage of that concern to promote their brand.”
On top of that, because the model’s bangs are cut short and choppy and her dress is a baby-doll style, some critics are accusing Calvin Klein of evoking child pornography.
In response, NCOSE is encouraging people to boycott the brand and cut up any Calvin Klein products they already own and mail them to company headquarters at 205 W. 39th St., New York, NY 10018. The group, which works to combat pornography, sex trafficking and sexual violence, urges people to express their outrage on social media with the hashtag #ICutCalvin.
“We can’t let them normalize this kind of behavior,” Hawkins told me. “Upskirting is part of a public health crisis of sexual violence sweeping our country.”
