“I love color, but I want it in flowers, not clothes,” Calvin Klein once told Vogue. Evidently, he had a change of heart for Spring 1996. Mixed in among the neutrals—like the black-and-white color-blocked ensemble Shalom Harlow wore on the February 1996 cover of the magazine—were sherbet-color pastels, many made into scoop-neck tank dresses with racy backs borrowed from swimwear. Klein might have been California dreaming, but he was still awake to the needs of his city-slick customers. For them there were slim-cut suedes, work-appropriate suiting, and “streetwise” checks, too. Surf and turf, in other words.
