With barely-there make-up and a natural rapport, Lupita Nyong’o and Saoirse Ronan sit together laughing. This intimate moment between the Academy Award winner and three-time Oscar nominee is a snapshot from the launch of Calvin Klein’s latest fragrance.
‘The campaign is an exploration of femininity - a group of women bonded by a common thread; the desire to have the power to create their own identity, and to support and lead the way for those that come after them,’ said Raf Simons in the press release. To continue the theme of championing the fairer sex, Nyong’o and Ronan were asked to name women who ‘inspired and influenced them’. The latter picked Sissy Spacek and Nina Simone, while the Black Panther actress chose Earther Kitt and Katherine Hepburn. The final campaign image places these stars side-by-side with the ladies that ‘shaped their identities, as creatives, and as women’.
'Eartha Kitt and Katharine Hepburn are examples of people who didn’t accept the status quo; they made room for themselves. I am drawn to their integrity, and their ability to speak up and speak out for what they believe in, to change the course of history. I admire their fierce artistic points of view and that they did not betray themselves. I aspire to be similarity authentic and full of integrity,' Nyong’o explains.
For Ronan, 'Sissy Spacek has this openness to her, this presence. She seems to have a willingness to try anything and go anywhere. She was free—and a pioneer,' she says in the press release, 'Nina Simone was able to share the music industry and herself, make it into what she needed it to be. What it boils down to is—does somebody else’s work affect you? Does it strike a chord? Seeing people doing something that they’re passionate about is inspiring. It encourages you to do the same, to feel the same.'
Simply called ‘Women’, this is the first major scent launched by Calvin Klein since Raf Simons took the reigns at the American label. Made in partnership with Coty Luxury, it’s a woody fragrance mixed with orange blossom, eucalyptus acorns and Alaskan cedarwood. The fragrance will be sold at Harvey Nichols for the first month exclusively.