FKA Twigs’s Calvin Klein Ad Banned by UK Regulators

FKA Twigs.
Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Well, it’s the second time this week Calvin Klein got itself mixed up in questions over decorum and all that. The United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority banned FKA Twigs’s latest Calvin Klein ad in the country on January 10 due to its depiction of the singer as “a stereotypical sexual object” after two people issued complaints over the image. Oh, but when Jeremy Allen White provocatively drops trou, it takes his co-worker protesting to get folks to chill. The apparently offensive spread, captioned “Calvins or nothing,” features Twigs in contrapposto, half wearing the brand’s denim button-down that tastefully covers her nude right half. “The ad used nudity and centered on FKA Twigs’ physical features rather than the clothing, to the extent that it presented her as a stereotypical sexual object,” the ASA said, according to The Guardian, adding the “image’s composition placed viewers’ focus on the model’s body rather than on the clothing being advertised.”

Kendall Jenner’s ad from the same campaign earned similar complaints from the pair who took issue with Twigs’s, though the ASA deemed the Kardashian star’s version acceptable. She can be seen cradling her bare chest in a pair of jeans. Hmmm … well. Un petit misogynoir? Anyway. Calvin Klein doesn’t think the spread was something to write to an advertising-standards board about. “The images were not vulgar and were of two confident and empowered women who had chosen to identify with the Calvin Klein brand, and the ads contained a progressive and enlightened message,” it said in a statement, per The Guardian, calling the poses “natural and neutral.” Both women collaborated with the company and approved the images, the brand said.

As for the ASA having its Calvins in a twist over Twigs — it should know by now that she’s going to do whatever she’s going to do when it comes to how she depicts her body and sexuality. You would think anything FKA Twigs does would get a pass for gracing us with the historic album Magdalene.