Calvin Richard Klein (born November 19, 1942) is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc., in 1968. In addition to clothing, he also has given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewellery.
Klein was born on November 19, 1942, to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Flore (née Stern; 1909–2006) and Leo Klein. Leo had immigrated to New York from Hungary, while Flore was born in the United States to immigrants from Galicia and Buchenland, Austria-Hungary (modern day-Ukraine).
Klein went to Isobel Rooney Middle School 80 (M.S.80) as a child. He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and matriculated at, but never graduated from, New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, instead receiving an honorary doctorate in 2003. He did his apprenticeship in 1962 at an old line cloak-and-suit manufacturer, Dan Millstein, and spent five years designing at other New York City shops. In 1968, he launched his first company with his childhood best friend, Barry K. Schwartz.

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