Amandla Stenberg & Brandon Flynn celebrate Pride with Calvin Klein

This month, Taiwan granted adoption rights to same-sex couples, while the FDA allowed more queer men to donate blood, and the first-ever gender-nonconforming actors were nominated for Tony Awards. There is a clear accretion of milestones to be celebrated within the queerscape and fashion – which is often seen as flippant and frivolous and too aesthetics-driven – has always been a flagbearer for LGBTQ+ rights.

Calvin Klein, for example, has committed over $220,000 to NGOs including PFLAG National, ILGA World, and the Transgender Law Center in 2023. That a brand like Calvin Klein – which is as much a pop cultural behemoth as it is a business – supports marginalised members of the LGBTQ+ community is an essential part of social progress. 

Its Pride collection (which sees two limited-edition t-shirts designed in support of ILGA World and Transgender Law Center) will see pieces emblazoned with phrases like “show up for trans youth” – and through messages like this, Calvin Klein is making its allegiance and advocacy explicit. See also: rainbow-striped underwear and mesh fabrications that have fast become standard fare for people celebrating Pride. 

There is a tendency for Pride collections to be sequinned, glittered, and emblazoned in trite aphorisms, which, though well-meaning, can often feel patronising for queer people. It’s also rare for a brand to model their designs on queer people themselves, which makes Calvin Klein’s patronage of Amandla Stenberg and Brandon Flynn all the more refreshing. In two videos – which have been soundtracked to “Born Slippy” – the actors join a long list of CK heartthrobs, bearing their sex appeal beneath tungsten lights.

Flynn huffs hot breath onto a mirror, Stenberg contorts her body across a spinning disk. The campaign feels provocative and fun and positions queerness as something to aspire to – and that’s no mean feat when the mainstream media sees LGBTQ+ people as pawns within culture wars.

Click through the gallery above to see the rest of Calvin Klein’s 2023 Pride collection, and shop key pieces from the collection such as the tonal and colourblock bralette and underwear sets in the shoppable features above and below.

Shop the rest of the collection here and check out the campaign video below.