“You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” It’s an iconic tagline that Brooke Shields memorably delivered in her 1980 Calvin Klein campaign — one that went on to become one of the most famous, and controversial, fashion advertisements of all time.
More than three decades later, the jeans are still making headlines — most recently, for fetching $68,750 at an auction. Featured during the second installment of Studio Auctions’ “From Bombshells to Blasters: An Auction You Can’t Refuse” event, which was held last weekend in Burbank, California, the item’s winning bid was nearly $20,000 over the initial estimated value.
Before the final hammer dropped, Shields, 59, opened up to the auction house about giving away her legendary Calvins. “I hope that somebody enjoys these just as much as I have and finds them as meaningful as I do,” she said. “I can’t wait for someone to show these off!”
Shields revealed she kept three original pairs of jeans from the shoot. She gave one pair to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “as one does,” she quipped. The model plans to frame the other pair for her amusement, joking: “Can you imagine my waist was ever that small? It’s terrifying!”
Brooke Shields’ Daughter Grier Rewears Mom’s Iconic 2000s Dress
Indeed, Shields was just 15 when she shot the campaign, directed by Richard Avedon, which showed her wriggling around on the floor while zipping into a seriously snug set of Calvin Klein jeans and a buttoned-down-to-there silk shirt. But it was the oft-quoted line, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins,” that raised eyebrows when uttered by a then-underage Shields.
At the time, the tagline had a different meaning to Shields. “I was naive,” she admitted to Vogue back in 2021. “I didn’t think it had to do with underwear. I didn’t think it was sexual in nature.”
The ads grabbed the eyes, and the dollars, of shoppers, boosting sales by a whopping 300 percent. But their provocative nature also caused a media sensation and ultimately, they were banned from the airwaves of several American TV networks as well as in multiple countries.
Calvin Klein, for his part, defended the ads all the way to the bank. During a 1985 interview with Diane Sawyer, the designer said: “I do try to… provoke. I try to interest. I try to excite people. I don’t deny that. And I will take chances with advertising. And I will maybe sometimes step beyond what is considered to be in good taste. And maybe I do stir up some trouble, but it works.”
As Shields recalled in her 2023 Hulu documentary, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, “People became obsessed with these jeans. It was like I was part of a movement.” And the movement still lives on beyond the auction block, both in pop culture and in the pages of fashion history.
Earlier this month, Emmy Award–winner John Mulaney recreated the image to promote his latest appearance as the host of Saturday Night Live. Shields responded by sharing a side-by-side photo of herself and the comedian via Instagram along with a pithy caption that read: “I see no difference… I guess they can be your Calvins too, @johnmulaney 
@nbcsnl @calvinklein.”
Meanwhile, Shields’ 21-year-old daughter, Rowan, couldn’t help but laugh about the fact that her Calvins-wearing mom is being studied at Wake Forest, where she’s currently a senior. As Rowan recounted in a 2024 video for People: “It’s so funny, because I was taking a fashion course and we had a week on denim…and [my professor] set the curriculum up to include denim and Brooke Shields.” Adding: “I was just sitting in the back [of the class], like, ‘aww,’”
