It’s a love story everyone remembers, and with fashion’s current fixation on nostalgia, it’s prime time for the retelling. That would be the backstory behind Calvin Klein’s iconic fragrance, Obsession, and its unforgettable campaign starring Kate Moss, shot by her then-boyfriend Mario Sorrenti, in 1993. Now the fragrance has new notes and a new name, Obsessed, and plays on the evocation of memory through scent. Chief creative officer Raf Simons came up with the idea to go back to the archives for the ad campaign, which ultimately led to working with Sorrenti once more.
“If one thing summed up Calvin Klein for us visually, it was Mario Sorrenti’s Obsession campaign with Kate Moss,” Simons said in a statement. “It lived in our heads for so many years and became a touchstone of sensuality when we arrived at Calvin Klein. We thought about a scent that could reflect such an idea of memory and desire for today. Of male and female, of the memory of somebody else on your skin.”
“I was so passionate about photography, and Kate and I were in love…I loved photographing her,” Sorrenti recalled in a statement. “She was the closest person to me. I would take pictures of her all of the time, and sometimes it drove her crazy, and other times she loved to be part of it. We had really good times. We were young, and I was never again so obsessed or so in love with photographing one person.”
