NEW YORK — Chris Jackson has been named vice president of design for Calvin Klein Women’s Better Sportswear, a division of Kellwood Co.
Jackson most recently served as design director of DKNY women’s collection for nine years. Earlier, he held major design posts at Nautica, French Connection and Anne Klein.
Based here, Jackson reports to Stephen Ruzow, president of the Calvin Klein Women’s Better Sportswear division and executive vice president at Kellwood.
“We interviewed a lot of people and I really saw Chris as a great fit for Calvin Klein Women’s Better Sportswear,” Ruzow said. “I like that he comes from bridge and that he really does understand what we want to do with the collection.”
Ruzow said that come fall 2006, when the line relaunches, Calvin Klein Women’s Better Sportswear will no longer be broken into career and casual separates, but placed together as a full lifestyle collection.
“We always had a lifestyle collection, but it was broken into those career and casual areas, now the line will all work together with colors coordinating,” he explained. “It’s really going to be displayed in the way women dress. They don’t have a casual closet and a career closet. They have one closet, and that’s how we see the new collection.”
In September, Kellwood agreed to purchase G.A.V.’s interests in the Calvin Klein Women’s Better Sportswear business and named Ruzow president of that division. Before that deal, G.A.V. managed it as a joint business venture with Kellwood.
The Calvin Klein deal with Kellwood and G.A.V. was signed in June 2003 and the first collection was shipped to department stores in February 2004. While G.A.V. handled areas such as product, quality, fit, marketing and positioning, Kellwood was in charge of back-office operations and funded the business.
In the new setup, the collection is produced by Kellwood under a license agreement with Calvin Klein Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Phillips-Van Heusen Corp.