When I first heard that one of Raf Simons’s Big New Ideas for the transformation of Calvin Klein was Andy Warhol, I rolled my eyes.

As an art-fashion play, it seemed a little obvious. A pop icon household name for a pop icon household name. The creative who embraced Campbell’s Soup being the symbol of a creative who embraced underwear. No matter that they (Calvin and Andy) actually used to hang out with the same crowd. That was then; this was mid-2017.

Mr. Simons, who is Belgian, had arrived the September before as the brand’s first chief creative officer, to much ballyhoo about the reinvention of an American icon, and much joy on the part of the fashion crowd. As a designer, he had been a hero of sorts to the style set since he introduced his own men’s wear brand in 1995, and then revived Jil Sander (in 2005) and Christian Dior (in 2012, after the John Galliano disgrace).

Now he had been handed the keys to the Klein kingdom, brought in to turn around what had become a stale brand living on past glory (albeit one with $8 billion in sales): Redo the stores, rethink the lines, change the teams, upend the ad campaigns, reinvent the wheel, cause a ruckus.