Calvin Klein has been doing this for decades. Find one of the most famous men in the world, remove almost everything he is wearing and let a waistband do the rest. It sounds too familiar to feel exciting anymore. Then Bad Bunny does it.

Photographed by Mario Sorrenti in Puerto Rico, the Spring 2025 campaign puts Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio in Calvin Klein underwear against mirrors, white space and almost nothing else. There is no elaborate world being built around him because there does not need to be. Bad Bunny is the campaign.

THE FORMULA STILL WORKS

Calvin Klein underwear campaigns have never really been about underwear. Mark Wahlberg, Justin Bieber and generations of models entered the same visual language before him: body, name, waistband. The product is simple enough that whoever is wearing it becomes the event.

Bad Bunny fits that formula unusually well because his identity is strong enough to survive the simplicity. The tattoos remain visible, his own track “EoO” accompanies the campaign and the shoot took place in Puerto Rico. Calvin Klein does not need to invent a character for him. It mostly gets out of the way.

The campaign reduces Calvin Klein's visual language to its most recognisable elements.

BAD BUNNY DOESN'T DISAPPEAR INTO THE BRAND

That is where the casting becomes more interesting than another celebrity endorsement. Bad Bunny does not suddenly become a generic Calvin Klein model. The campaign still feels unmistakably like him, which allows Calvin Klein to enter his world rather than forcing him into theirs.

That distinction matters. Celebrity campaigns are everywhere, but fame alone does not make an image memorable. The best casting changes the temperature of the brand itself. Here, Calvin Klein gets some of Bad Bunny's confidence, sexuality and cultural weight simply by allowing him enough space to remain recognisable.

IT'S HARD TO LOOK AWAY

The images also understand how little they need to explain. White underwear, black underwear, a tank top, mirrors. Sorrenti keeps the visual language direct enough that Bad Bunny's body, tattoos and expression carry most of the campaign themselves.

That simplicity feels almost refreshing at a moment when fashion advertising regularly arrives with cinematic films, complicated fictional worlds and enough campaign language to explain why we are supposed to care. Calvin Klein does the opposite. The images are immediate, sexual and designed to be remembered before they are understood.

CALVIN KLEIN NEVER REALLY NEEDED A NEW FORMULA

The obvious temptation for a brand with advertising this famous is to reinvent it. Bad Bunny's campaign suggests that might be unnecessary. Calvin Klein's formula still works because its simplicity leaves enough room for the right person to completely change how it feels.

Bad Bunny does exactly that. You see him, you see the waistband and you remember the image. Sometimes fashion advertising does not need to be more complicated than that.