‘I do not see a stereotypical sexual object’: FKA twigs on her CK ad ban

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week (and the way the world is right now, who could blame you?), it’s likely you’ll have spotted a series of mostly black and white photos of Jeremy Allen White wearing nothing but a pair of pants littering your timeline. In a new Calvin Klein campaign lensed by industry legend Mert Alas, the freshly-ripped star of The Bear is captured in various states of undress, leaning back against a sofa with his jeans unzipped, and staring down the camera as he bites into a juicy red apple. 

Unsurprisingly, the internet collectively lost its mind when the images dropped late last week, with the photos going quickly viral across social media and salacious gossip sites alike. Just a few days later, however, there’s bad news for fellow Calvin Klein campaign face FKA twigs, whose own CK image – depicting the musician almost nude, with a dark denim shirt draped over her body – has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, on the grounds that the image presented her as “a stereotypical sexual object”.

“The ad used nudity and centred on FKA twigs’ physical features rather than the clothing, to the extent that it presented her as a stereotypical sexual object. The image’s composition placed viewers’ focus on the model’s body, rather than on the clothing being advertised,” the ASA wrote in a statement announcing its decision, which was spurred on by just two complaints. It added that the photograph was irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence.” 

Meanwhile, the people who complained about the twigs ads also had something to say about an image featuring Kendall Jenner, in which the model is captured topless and holding her breasts to shield them from the camera. This photograph escaped the ASA’s wrath, with the board ruling that Jenner’s pose was not sexually suggestive and fell in line with established lingerie advertising rules. Never mind that the amount of skin on show in both models’ shots is similar, and twigs looks powerful and strong rather than stereotypically ‘sexy’ or seductive in the images.

Now, twigs has responded to the ASA’s ban on the image which first dropped in 2023, sharing it to social media alongside a short statement. “i do not see the ‘stereotypical sexual object’ that they have labelled me. i see a beautiful strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine,” she wrote. “In light of reviewing other campaigns past and current of this nature, i can’t help but feel there are some double standards here, so to be clear… i am proud of my physicality and hold the art i create with my vessel to the standards of women like josephine baker, eartha kitt, and grace jones who broke down barriers of what it looks like to be empowered and and harness a unique embodied sensuality.”

The censorship of twigs’ Calvin campaign echoes what many women on platforms like Instagram are also faced with. While slim, white models and influencers with Eurocentric features are allowed to post suggestive photos in which they wear next to nothing, queer, fat, gender-nonconforming and people of different races are regularly shadowbanned for sharing images of a similar nature. In 2020, Nyome Nicholas-Williams started IG campaign #iwanttoseenyome after she had her photographs removed by the app. Garnering over 17,000 tags, it caused Instagram to review its rules, but four years on little has changed. 

“i do not see the ‘stereotypical sexual object’ that they have labelled me. i see a beautiful strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine” – FKA twigs

twigs’ ban also illuminates the double standards of the what is expected of men versus women – there were few non-horny comments to be found under CK’s posts of Jeremy Allen White that suggested the images were not sexually suggestive or that people were looking *respectfully*.

Calvin Klein has also released a statement in support of twigs on the now banned ad: “The images were not vulgar and were of two confident and empowered women [also referring to Kendall Jenner] who had chosen to identify with the Calvin Klein brand, and the ads contained a progressive and enlightened message.”  The fight for women to have true agency and autonomy over their bodies and the way they portray them goes on.

Revisit some of the most controversial fashion ads of recent years in the gallery below.