Veronica Leoni’s Debut at Calvin Klein

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. Today, I'm joined by Veronica Leoni, the new creative director of Calvin Klein, who showed her debut collection here in New York last week. Leoni has quite the resume. An Italian based in Rome, she's a veteran of Jill Sander, Phoebe Philo-Seline, and The Row. She founded her own label, Queera, three years ago and was an LVMH Prize finalist in 2023. At the time, she described her style to Vogue as a sharp point of view on femininity with an edge. We talked about her interpretation of Calvin Klein, early memories of the brand, and what Calvin himself, who was in the audience at her show, thought of her debut.

0:45Well, Veronica Leone, thank you so much for joining us on the Run Thru podcast. And congratulations on your Calvin Klein debut. We're recording this two days after the show. It's Sunday morning, very early in the Vogue offices. I want to know how you're feeling 48 hours after the show. Yeah, thank you, Nicole. Thank you very much for having me. It's actually a very cool morning here in New York. I feel thrilled and excited and very happy for the last two weeks I spent here. I think it's been a fantastic climax for this season. And, yeah, I'm very excited. You got a nice snowstorm, too, while you were here.

1:24Exactly, exactly. It's the perfect—I was just saying this is actually the perfect, you know, a January, February kind of fashion week in New York that you don't know if you're really coming back to Europe because of the storm or if you're going to be stuck at the airport with no flights tonight. But, yeah, yeah. I think you'll be on your way. So what an exciting day it was on Friday at 205 West 39th Street. Calvin Klein himself was in the building. And I've been going to Calvin shows for years slash decades, I'm embarrassed to say. And I've never seen him at a show since he retired. What did Calvin say to you about the collection?

2:04He was very excited. He actually came to me and, you know, he couldn't stop talking about the coats. I think, you know, he had a very good, like, impressive feeling on the coat. And he was, like, saying, you know, I really need a new coat now. I know where I can go and buy it. And I think that, yeah, it was very emotional. and very unexpected, I have to say. You know, it was like the forbidden dream, in a way, to have him seated there. And that came with a very natural process, in a way. And I loved it. And, yeah, and he was happy also to recognize, like, a certain familiarity in the pacing of the models.

2:47He told me that he doesn't like when the models are too floaty or, like, slowly walk in the runway. He wants to have comfy. He always wanted to have confidence from them, and he was happy to see that confidence in action. I was really touched to look around in the minutes leading up to the show and to see people were really emotional to reconnect with him. People on the Vogue team who have worked at Calvin Klein, but then, you know, Christy and Kate, who were obviously his muses famously in the 90s. It was a really touching, touching moment. Yeah, and actually we kept it secret until last minute.

3:27So I think it was surprising for everybody. And yeah, it was actually fantastic. I think we really made a beautiful and precious moment in our history. So your appointment was announced last May and your life changed. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about how your life has changed in the last half year. I feel that actually I had a fantastic season. And this has been potentially on a, you know, logistic standpoint and creative standpoint, like the ultimate resolution, because I used to travel quite a lot. I always used to be based in Rome after my experience at Saline when I left London. So I was always on the go.

4:12I was always packing. Every Monday was a trip to reach the working place in a way. And Rome has been always like my time off before Calvin. Well, actually, now it's opposite. I feel that Rome became my full-time job in a way, and New York is another moment of full-time job. So I'm just integrating these two cities on a schedule, which makes it more minimal and efficient. So I really felt I spent a full-time creative flow with my team in the two countries and has been very, very inspiring. You were born and raised in Rome. And you've mentioned before the influence that the city has on your work.

4:56You describe it as an absence of discipline and that it remains deep in your aesthetics. How does that manifest, do you think? I think it's, you know, Rome is like, as a Roman born and raised, you know, you do not realize where you live in a way. And I feel that, you know, it's been funny through the season because, you know, a few collaborators that came to Rome to work with me, you know, had like fantastic experience, like running in front of the Colosseum with a taxi. And for me, it was just normal. And for them was like, this is fantastic. And, you know, I feel that there is like a certain like nonchalance in the city.

5:37There is glamour, there's like ultimate beauty, but it's like normalized to a level of like daily common experience to me. And I feel that this is maybe my, you know, the heritage that the city has left me in a way in the approach to design. So I would say it's the nonchalance of glamour, the nonchalance of beauty that sticks with me as a mantra every time I practice fashion. How does that nonchalance translate into the clothes that you've designed for this first season of Calvin Klein? I feel that nonchalance in wardrobe means an effortless and very casual way of expressing and living and embodying, in a way, design.

6:30So I feel that, for example, we really spend a lot of time on like deconstructing, tailoring and make sure that, you know, the body could wear tailoring without having the opposite experience of the tailoring wearing yourself in a way. So a certain emptiness, a certain ease in a way and a certain also pragmatism, I'd say, in the way the clothes were made. And maybe it's the, I don't want to call it simplicity because it would be too simplistic, but there's a certain resolution in the way everything is realized and resolved that makes it effortless. I want to talk about your process. You arrive in, you know, in the middle of last year, and archives tend to be a really big part of the narrative when a new designer comes to a house with as much history as Calvin did.

7:27But I was surprised when I saw you the day before the show, you said that though you went into the archives, you really didn't pick up anything really save for one ballet flat, right? Yeah, and a sweater. And a sweater. And a sweater, yes, yes. You know, I had the, you know, the deep instinct of not relying on a nostalgic interpretation of the brand. And we know that, you know, we already knew that with me and Calvin, the brand and Calvin, the man in terms of aesthetic had already a very common ground in terms of, you know, aesthetic and my training and, you know, my inspiration and my path through fashion.

8:08So I didn't feel the need of like, you know, reinterpreting his old patterns in a way. So I think he was more about catching a energy and carving is a state of mind, no? So you kind of want to get that energy back on and try to push it forward through a more contemporary vision, a personal vision, I'd say. and it's actually been interesting to leave the opposite process. So I went back to the archive a few days ago actually for a different purpose and I did find pieces that were very close to what we did so it was almost about validating the process that we had independently from the archive and, you know, reconnect the dots.

8:56So I feel that, you know, the process has been very organic but I really felt that with this first collection we closed a circle and in this way of not being nostalgic, we anyhow landed on a ground that was familiar for the brand. So I think that now, you know, I'm starting to think about the next season and I feel that everything is possible and this makes me feel, you know, that we've done a good job for this first take and possibilities are endless. You use the word instinct with me, which I want to get into that a little bit. What does your instinct say about Calvin Klein in 2025? What should Calvin Klein look like now?

9:42I think when I say Calvin is a state of mind is exactly what I feel. I feel that it is not just about a shape of a coat or the wash of a denim. is more about that very spirited and energetic and relevant position that Calvin has always embodied in a cultural system. And, you know, it's almost like the ultimate American dream that you can export worldwide. And I feel that there is space for that. There is space for that narrative. And today we are in a more global kind of approach to fashion. And I feel that as soon as you lose a little bit the geographical narration, it becomes just a common dream in a way for people worldwide.

10:32So I think it's a little bit of that. And I think it's when we were working at the casting as well, we were really like talking about beauty very much. So maybe that's the more contemporary way of living, Carl, like a deep sense of beauty that is based on freedom of expression, spirited emotion and cultural relevance along the way.

11:03Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

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11:51And we're back. As I was thinking about your arrival, it struck me that since Calvin retired, his label has only been interpreted by non-Americans. Francisco Costa was Brazilian, Raf Simons is Belgian, and you are Italian. What, like as an Italian, do you have early memories of Calvin Klein? And what did it signify to you? Yeah, I mean, I think my first memory is definitely the CK1 campaign. I feel I was like just a child, I'd say. And that moment of aesthetic, that like provocative group of people was like the ultimate ambition. And you want to be Kate Moss, you want to be Jenny Shimizu, you want to be those people in a way.

12:44So I think that that was my first memory. But then Calvin Klein is embedded in culture everywhere. So I think that and I don't know, I remember Calvin since I've got memories in a way. And on another standpoint, I feel that the, you know, the nationality of design is maybe at the end not that relevant. And I feel that design is very international. And, you know, the brand itself, it needs to be international. So I don't think that in a way this matters in the result, no. So I have a somewhat embarrassing early Calvin Klein memory. And I'm going to share it with you. And then maybe you could share something specific with me.

13:29I am older than you. So I remember Brooke Shields in the Calvin Klein jeans. And I was so crazy for Brooke Shields that I wrote her a fan letter and I got a postcard back that, you know, I thought she had personally written. But I'm sure it was just kind of a stamp, you know. And I would give anything if I could find that postcard. I mean, this is going back to the mid-80s. So, yeah, what do you remember about being a young person? You're not even a teenager and you're seeing these campaigns. I think it was very much on the wardrobe. I remember I was wearing those like skinny, sexy jeans and I was matching them with my dad's shirt because I wanted to disappear in it.

14:20And, you know, it was that like crush of like what at the time was possibly street style, no? Because that's what it was. And, yeah, and that was my uniform. Like, my dad was, like, hysterical because every morning I was going and stealing a new shirt, new shirt, new shirt. And then, of course, CK1, the perfume itself. And I feel that, you know, we had this moment of fictitious and the brainstorming with my team. And we really wanted to embrace this, like, iconic take of Calvin on our generation. And CK1 battle was definitely one of it. And we did a clutch with it that, you know, has been very, very iconic for our season.

15:04But this is what you want to celebrate, no? The impact that on us, the brand, has in the past. And I think more or less we are, you know, possibly among the older in the team. But, you know, we belong to that generation. And we just want to embrace that influence and try to translate that in the future. So we're talking about these really iconic memories of ours of Calvin Klein, but obviously we are in the 2020s. Who do you envision as the Calvin Klein client or the Calvin Klein shopper now? Who are you designing for? Yeah, this has been also like quite of a topic throughout the process with, you know, Stefan, Eva, the marketing team.

15:48I feel, you know, Calvin Klein collection has been silent for a few years now. So I would say that we haven't got a customer base, existing customer base at the moment. And actually, the, you know, the operation here is deeper and challenging. We need to seduce them back. And I feel that, you know, we are definitely targeting a wide range of people. I think customer today, fashion customer today is extremely intelligent. You know, they know how to navigate fashion. They know what is worth it. They know what quality of design means. We know they know, you know, how to approach their own wardrobe in a very eclectic way.

16:34So you want to be, I feel like I'd like to be meaningful for them on a multiple level. I think I want to make sure they trust my quality. I want to make sure they can trust my take on design. I want to make sure they feel noticeable, but not loud. And so I think it's sophisticated, but very, and also very intelligent. On the other standpoint, I think Calvin Klein, it's based on desire. There's, you know, obsession work came back multiple times in the conversation every time. And I feel you want to be obsessed with the brand. So I think that there's definitely a practical level that rely on the product.

17:16But then on the other point, there's an aspirational and more emotional connection that I feel it would be important for us to establish with our customer. Well, I have to say that I am already obsessed with the very skinny silhouette of the pants and the trim little sweater over the button down. And I especially liked it and appreciated it because you, having come from the row and Celine, are really, you know, at least partly responsible for this really generous silhouette, the slouchy, full-legged pants that all the fashion girls are wearing now and have been wearing for many years. So it really felt like a pivot.

17:58And I wanted to talk more about the fashion message of the collection you showed. What do you feel like the fashion message is? You know, I think silhouette, it's been like quite a conversation. I feel, you know, the most successful shows I've seen in my life are always like avant-garde on the silhouette. That doesn't mean to, you know, force leap coats, but it means like proportion. It means like renew a certain body consciousness in a way. And you're very true. I was like, I really felt it actually at Phoebe's time. We were, I mean, she was practicing a revolution in women's wardrobe. I remember the moment where nobody was wearing trainees, you know, sneaker with like a suit.

18:46And she was actually, you know, embracing the uniform and push it throughout. And I feel that, you know, at 10, that moment was actually an extraordinary experience. And I feel Ashley and Mary-Kate did exactly the same on there with the row. But I would say also Mrs. Sander, in a way, has been able to establish a posture in the body. And I think it's about the attitude. So I feel that when I started the collection, I was actually after a recognizable attitude that could be Calvin and not someone else in a way. So I think that as much as I'm part of the uniform and the slouchy oversized thing, I hope that I can embrace myself also something that it's a bit more future oriented in my angle.

19:42So, yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned Phoebe Filo and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson and Jill Sander, all of whom you've worked for. Do you see those women as mentors? And if not, who have been your mentors in your career? They've been like the most extraordinary example of female leadership and creativity. I've been so lucky, you know. When I look back, I'm like in awe to these women. And, you know, they've been extraordinary examples with very different take, all of them. I feel, you know, Mrs. Sander was like devoted to product. But she was like devoted to her customers. And I remember doing this endless fittings also on white T-shirts.

20:28You know, she was trying T-shirts herself. And that was like the example of the ultimate care that she had towards her customer base. And that was awesome. And, you know, Phoebe, she's mastermind of style. She's like, you know, the ultimate editor of herself. And, you know, she was like always unpredictable. And we were just attending fashion in motion. at the time and that was fantastic. And, you know, Mary-Kate and Ashley, they are like the ultimate example of, you know, luxurious beauty. And, you know, they are so devoted to the role in a very, very profound way. And, you know, their professional level is like insane.

21:10And I was so inspired by them. So they're definitely part of my mentors along the process. And, you know, I will always be thankful for these opportunities. Given all of those opportunities, I can only imagine what your closet is like. Tell me a little bit about what you have. I love pants, actually. I'm like, you know, obsessed by trousers. So I think, I don't know, I can count. I think, I mean, yeah, I cannot say numbers, but I'd say I've got like tones of black pants. Of course, coats is totally an obsession. I've got also a little archive. I feel, you know, I feel the pieces that I'm most attached to is actually some beautiful prototypes of the history.

22:06And, you know, I feel most of the coat has not buttoned because they didn't achieve the stage of being buttoned up. but yeah no I've got good memories and I struggle to get you know to let them go so I feel I'm enlarging and enlarging my wardrobe over year and year and yeah I'm a little worried someday I have to see it

22:33more with Veronica Leone after the break

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23:18So I read about your English professor, English literature professor. She introduced you to fashion theory. And I want to hear about what attracted you to fashion as a young person. I think that I never imagined myself doing it on a job since I've got memories. This was like a vocation, I'd say. I remember myself sketching silhouette since when I was like six. And, you know, I never stopped doing so. And I feel that a little bit due to my grandma, she was always like putting together a pleated skirt or knitting a jumper or, you know, working on her own wardrobe in a way. Even though she was not a seamstress by profession, she was actually, you know, secretary.

24:03So in a way, she kind of used that as a personal hobby, I'd say. That kind of fashion in action in the most humble way has always been in, you know, my daily life. I spent a lot of time with her when I was a child. And then it just became the dream and the ambition. And on the other side, I feel that my family never made me feel I was crazy. so I just worked to make that happen and university was, I was very curious I was very good at school too so I felt at the time that I wanted to wrap my study path with a substantial kind of also more theoretical kind of approach and this was I think a very good choice and I met Paola Kolajacomo, my professor So she was, you know, fashion studies at the time was just at the beginning, especially in Italy.

25:03You know, Italy is all on craft, it's not on the theory in a way. So it was a fantastic meeting and she was actually teaching English literature through a fashion angle. So we went through Virginia Woolf and the way Virginia Woolf was telling about costume and, you know, Orlando was iconic for me. And, you know, William Morris and, you know, Susan Sontag and, you know, whatever was kind of like theoretically connected to fashion just layered in me as a, you know, an extra moment for design to be relevant in a way. So I think that that kind of like path gave a lot of narrative to my creative process.

25:51You mentioned your family and you launched a label several years ago and you named it after your grandmother. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. My grandmother, she was named Quirina, which is a very Roman name, actually. And I mean, our friends used to call it Quira. And I love the Q. I think it was a very beautiful letter. and Queera was like a good sum up of my path until the foundation of my brand in a way. And on the other side, I'm also very shy and imagining my names on like thousand label in the center back of a coat, it would have very embarrassed me. So I was like, I need to avoid my personal name and give it to a more symbolic, you know, sound in a way.

26:44And you put that label on hold to work at Calvin Klein. Yes, yes. I feel, you know, for some reason we succeeded to create a very healthy brand. It's definitely a startup. It's really, really young and made of friends, I'd say. And I felt the responsibility towards the two project in a way. And Calvin Klein as well was a startup. Collection was a startup. We started from scratch in a way. So I was a new designer, building up the team again, reestablishing a process for factories, restarting working with the atelier here in New York. So I really felt that he needed my full-time attention. So I think that it was for the, you know, good intention towards the two project to focus on one at a time.

27:37And maybe there'll be a time for me to, you know, reembrace also Quira and make it happen again. Well, that will make my colleagues happy. Thank you. So sometime in the future. A string of male designers, what else is new, have gotten appointments. And the industry over the last year or so has really talked about the lack of women in leadership roles in the industry. What do you have to say about that situation? You know, I feel, yeah, there is a real lack of representation, even though the industry is filled of women. And, you know, I've got like hundreds of colleagues that actually, you know, work in different role.

28:23But, you know, my note goes more to, you know, to people like Virginie or Mario Grazia and, you know, the fact that maybe most of the time we do not succeed to give credit to their job. So lack of representation, of course. But then on the other end, I would also say that, you know, they've done an amazing job. And sometimes we just miss the opportunity to celebrate this in a way. And this goes also a little bit to the past. I feel that we always celebrate male designers. We always forget about, you know, Madame Grey or, you know, Schiaparelli herself. and, you know, those fantastic women that in a way shaped the taste and shaped the industry to the status that it is now.