In 1976, Calvin Klein showcased jeans on a runway for the first time, elevating denim from casual wear to high fashion. The designer jeans, characterized by their tight fit, distinctive back pocket stitching, and prominent branding, became a status symbol and sparked a 'designer jeans' craze. The event marked a turning point in denim's cultural status, transforming it from a symbol of working-class rebellion to a luxury item.

Calvin Klein's runway debut of jeans signaled the commodification of counterculture style, a theme that poets of the New York School, like Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery, explored in their critiques of consumer culture. The designer jeans phenomenon also reflected the blurring of boundaries between high and low art, a central concern of postmodern poetry. The 'Calvin Klein' label became a synecdoche for the fashion industry's appropriation of subcultural symbols, a process that poets have both chronicled and resisted.