Given that many companies in the sector such as airlines and restaurant operate in fixed locations, cost-cutting will be a particular challenge. However, historic trends suggest that once the war ends travel and tourism will surge, so businesses need to ensure that the business model is flexible and avoid drastic measures. This year’s Indy 100 winners have demonstrated resilience so far and we wish them well through the challenges ahead.Alex Kyriakidis is head of Travel, Tourism and Leisure at Deloitte & Touche. If Calvin Klein was a third of the age he really is, you might say, “Poor little rich kid”. If his was a case of intolerable pressure brought on by instant fame, his current plight would be likewise understandable. If Klein had suffered some abject failure, then, yes, you could see how it might reduce him to misery and desperation.
Yet here he is – all of 60 years old and one of the wealthiest and most successful fashion designers in the history of the catwalk – making a public embarrassment of himself, having to check in to drink and drug rehab and admit to the world last week that he is seeking help “to resume a healthy and productive lifestyle”.Along with Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, Klein is one of the biggest global superbrands to have emerged in fashion in the past 30 years. The Calvin Klein look – sleek, stylish, modern – has helped to define the age. From haute couture to jeans, from perfume to underwear (as worn by Tony Blair), Klein’s creations have been bought by millions and influenced the dress sense of millions more. If you’ve ever wondered where the fashion came from for jeans that slip down to reveal the waistband of what’s underneath, ask Calvin Klein.For a poor boy from the Bronx who dreamt of opening a pet shop and put together his first collection on the back of a $6,000 loan, it’s not a bad result. The shirt giant Phillips-Van Heusen certainly thought so when last year it bought the Calvin Klein label for a staggering $430m (£270m) in a deal that not only sealed Klein’s place in the ranks of fashion’s super-rich but gave him a dominant role in the new set-up. Yet within three months of the deal going through, Klein was giving his friends cause for concern. He had had drink and prescription drug problems when he lived through New York’s heady days in the 1970s and 1980s But that was then.
Or so people thought.There was no hiding what happened last month when he attended a New York Knicks basketball match. A figure emerged from the crowd and wandered across the court towards one of the Knicks’ star players and tapped him on the arm as he was in mid-throw Security led the man back to his seat. It was Klein.Such outlandish behaviour left Klein with nowhere to turn but back to drug rehab. Nothing unusual in that for celebrities of Klein’s stature, maybe, but what makes it so much worse for Klein, according to one associate, is first his age, and second his desire to maintain an aura of serenity and self-control. “I think it’s the strain of trying to do that which may be Calvin’s problem,” she says “He’s a control freak – over himself and other people. And he can’t cope with the amount of pressure he’s putting himself under.”Certainly there has always been a conflict between the image Klein presents to the world – as expressed in the clothes – and the reality of a private life that has been characterised by faltering happiness, regular bouts of turmoil, and an anguished episode in which the life of his daughter was threatened.
Two failed marriages have done little to quench speculation about Klein’s sexuality. But if he is gay, he has shown a marked reluctance to say so, even in a world in which gayness is no big deal.Klein thinks his fastidiousness derives in large part from his mother Flo. “She put plastic covers over everything in the house,” he once recalled. This even included lampshades and footstools, “in horrible, heavy brocades”. This was the 1950s when, according to Klein, “everything was weird Everything was perfect like that movie The Truman Show.
