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¶ Calvin Klein, ten years Halston's junior, is viewed by some experts as the most perceptive U.S. designer. A supercharged worker (13 hours a day), he graduated from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and opened his own house in 1968. His clothes are comfortable and uncluttered. Seemingly influenced early in his career by Yves St. Laurent—though he denies it —three-time Coty Winner Klein has the French master's pipeline to the female fancy. Describing a typical Klein ensemble of skirt, skinny coat and cowled sweater as "the best basic look in fashion today," Vogue last September pronounced: "If you were around 100 years from now and wanted a definitive picture of the American look in 1975, you'd study Calvin Klein." His clothes will earn $40 million at retail this year; his licensing agreements, covering everything from furs to sheets, took in $12 million in 1975. "Some people take their cue from Jackie O," he remarks, without naming Rival Halston. "I am more interested in the young American woman, and I watch her." But he does not lack for celebrated clients. Among them: Elizabeth Ashley, Mrs. William Buckley, Faye Dunaway, Alexis Smith, Mica Ertegun and Ethel Kennedy.
¶ Like Klein, Ralph Lauren, né Lifshitz, was born in The Bronx. At 36, in only his fourth year of designing women's wear, he is perhaps the most purely American of all. For the "thoroughbred, American-looking girl who really takes care of her body," he creates clothes that are "part of living, earthly, tweedy." He is a masterful tailor and a lover of fabrics such as Harris tweed and British flannel. His slim, sleek adaptations of English blazers and hacking jackets are, he says, "unfashionable in a way, yet fun and exciting in their function." His women's wear brought in $10 million retail last year and Polo, his menswear firm, another $16 million.
His clothes count among their adherents Shirley MacLaine, Barbra Streisand, Sally Quinn, Lola Redford, Diane Keaton and Lauren Hutton (who once said that she wears only jeans and Lauren).
¶ Geoffrey Beene, 49, a three-time Coty winner from Louisiana, studied to be a doctor before deciding he would rather decorate women than diagnose them. An urbane high-fashion designer (up to $3,000 for a turnout), he has developed one of the world's classiest lower-priced ready-to-wear lines. His Beene Bag collection features loose, lean clothes—notably big shirts and wide pants—that sell for between $12 and $200 and, he claims, are "on the same taste level as my couture." After delving into the history of apparel since the 14th century, Beene decided that "the most enduring thing, lasting centuries, has been peasants' clothes." The keynote, he says, is "simplicity," adding: "To arrive at simplicity without looking contrived is one of the most difficult things in the world." In Beene's bag are such fashionable women as Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper, Mary Wells Lawrence, Jackie Onassis and Olympia de Rothschild. He designed Lynda Bird Johnson Robb's wedding dress.