NEW YORK - Calvin Klein took a bite out of the New York runway Wednesday with Belgian designer Raf Simons inspired by "Jaws," in his latest exploration of America, its glistening surface and dark underbelly.

Models marched down a red-carpeted runway against a glittering video seascape backdrop - all bobbing yachts, sun bouncing off gentle waves and a swimmer coming into view.

Suddenly the summer idyll was shattered with the menacing chords of the theme music to the 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster, more than 40 years on perhaps still America's most iconic summer horror flick.

Models emerged as if straight from the ocean, with wet strands of hair, beads of water glistening on their skin and dressed in wet suits, both long and cropped, the "Jaws" metaphor labored in shark-bite-style slashes on the hemlines of delicately pleated skirts.

"Jaws" imagery was printed on singlet T-shirts, as the soundtrack to the show flitted from the menacing to the sunny, taking in "Suspicious Minds" along the way and closing with "Scarborough Fair."

Simons moved to Calvin Klein two years ago and has been credited with giving the iconic American label renewed relevancy, his collections diving deep into the good, the bad and the ugly of the United States.

"The landscape of America - literal and psychological - inspires Calvin Klein. A journey through America leads, inevitably, to the edge of the landscape: The beach," Simons wrote in notes for the show.

"At the beach there is this incredible idea of beauty, but also a tension - between land and ocean, a feeling of two worlds meeting, maybe colliding," he added.

"There's a sense of the unexpected - and always, a temptation. For me, Jaws perfectly exemplifies these notions."

Closing with a fantasy graduation dress in electric blue with crinoline and Bo Peep-style hat, the show embodied the creative maxim that the catwalk is about art and not necessarily about the shop rack. - AFP