In what year did Calvin Klein win the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award? He won it in 2001.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America presented Klein with its Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2001 CFDA Fashion Awards. The honor recognized a career that had changed American fashion through minimalist clothing, influential branding and commercially successful designer basics.
Klein launched his company in 1968 with Barry K. Schwartz. His early work centered on clean, understated coats and dresses, but the business later expanded into sportswear, denim, underwear and fragrance. His provocative advertising helped make the Calvin Klein name as recognizable as the garments themselves.
The 2001 ceremony also honored designers including Tom Ford, John Varvatos and Nicolas Ghesquière in other categories. The award is sometimes confused with Klein’s earlier Coty American Fashion Critics’ Awards or with the later sale of Calvin Klein Inc. to Phillips-Van Heusen in 2003; those were separate milestones.