Jude Bellingham Fronts Calvin Klein's Underwear Campaign, Shot by Oliver Hadlee Pearch in Madrid

Calvin Klein's underwear campaign has a footballer in it. Jude Bellingham, the Real Madrid and England midfielder, fronts the new Icon Cotton Stretch campaign that went live on Monday, November 2, in Calvin Klein's stores, on calvinklein.com and across its social accounts. PVH Japan, the brand's Japanese arm, says in its release that it is his first campaign for the brand, and that the line it runs under is "the icon underneath".

Oliver Hadlee Pearch directed and photographed it in Madrid in August, and the pictures are as plain as the brand's underwear campaigns usually are: white walls, white floors, Bellingham in white briefs or black trunks and nothing else. The release says one cut recalls the goal celebration he does on the pitch; the shot Calvin Klein posted of him barefoot with both arms flung wide looks like the one.

Calvin Klein

In a statement Calvin Klein sent to Cosmopolitan, which ran the campaign on Monday morning, Bellingham said: "I really enjoyed working on this campaign. I liked the idea of 'the icon underneath'—that confidence starts with feeling comfortable in yourself. Calvin Klein is such an iconic brand, so it was great to bring that idea to life in my own way."

What he's wearing

The product is Icon Cotton Stretch, the brand's signature underwear shape, and the campaign introduces a new piece of it: the Icon Cotton Stretch Shine Trunk, whose Infinity Bond logo waistband has been updated with a glossy finish. Bellingham also wears the boxer brief, low-rise trunk, hip brief and slim boxer, all in the same cotton stretch. Calvin Klein's own posts describe the hip brief as a minimal fit with lightweight support. Prices aren't in the announcement.

Calvin Klein

Calvin Klein teased it before it named him. Cosmopolitan reports a billboard in SoHo that showed the body and not the face, and the brand's October 27 Instagram post said only "The next icon. Coming soon." The same outlet puts him in the line of the brand's underwear stars over the years, Michael B. Jordan, Justin Bieber, Jeremy Allen White and Bad Bunny.

Bellingham is 23 and plays for Real Madrid, and a footballer in Calvin Klein's underwear is not new: Freddie Ljungberg fronted the brand's campaigns in the 2000s while he was at Arsenal. What is new is the pick after a run of actors and musicians, and what the brand hasn't said is how long the campaign runs, whether there is a film beyond the clips it has posted, or whether the Shine Trunk is sold everywhere the campaign is.