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Calvin Klein introduces the 'technosexual'

By Eric Wilson (New York Times)
Updated: 2007-03-13 11:35

The new scent is geared toward technically savvy, sexually active youth.
The company went so far as to trademark the word 'technosexual.'

In 1994, Calvin Klein designed a fragrance that embodied, in its flat little screw-top bottle, the disaffected, sexually ambivalent grunge youth of the moment. CK One, with its unconventional black and white advertisements filled with moping, androgynous models, was arguably the most perfectly tailored fragrance ever pitched to one market, breaking industry rules and records, selling 20 bottles per minute at its peak. A unisex brand that became the olfactory talisman of Generation X, CK One was so authentically grunge it was carried in record stores alongside albums by Nirvana.

Next month, Calvin Klein Inc. and Coty, its fragrance licensee, will introduce a sequel to CK One for a new generation, the so-called millennials, and in doing so, they will attempt to capture lightning in a bottle for a second time. Calvin Klein, now without its namesake designer, hopes to rejuvenate a fragrance embodying the essence of hip 20-somethings — even at the risk that such a notion is as outdated as a Prince song about partying like it' 1999.

Last month, in a minimal white conference room at the Calvin Klein offices on West 39th Street in the garment district, Tom Murry, the president of the company, reviewed a series of outtakes filmed for a commercial for the new fragrance. They depict the actor Kevin Zegers (who played the son of a pre-operative transsexual in "Transamerica") in romantic pursuit of a model, Freja Beha Erichsen.

A companion ad to appear in magazines, photographed by the artsy duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin (replacing Steven Meisel, who created the iconic CK One campaign), shows Erichsen leaning against a wall, tugging off Zegers'belt as he twists a strand of her hair.

The page is layered with watery graffiti images of the words "sex" and "oday,"and on top of that, as large as the models, two glass bottles shaped like rocket silos topped in white plastic casing and the name of the new scent: CK in2u.

Embedded in these images, as described by a half-dozen Calvin Klein and Coty executives gathered around a table, is a portrait of a generation they describe as physically bold but emotionally guarded, having grown up using computers as a primary means of interaction.

The CK in2u bottle, designed by Stephen Burks, is made from the same materials - white plastic and glass - recognizable in an iPod. (Fabien Baron designed the original bottle.)

"We have envisioned this as the first fragrance for the technosexual generation,"said Murry, using a term the company made up to describe its intended audience of thumb-texting young people whose romantic lives are defined in part by the casual hookup.

Last year, the company went so far as to trademark "technosexual," anticipating it could become a buzzword for marketing to millennials, the roughly 80 million Americans born from 1982 to 1995.