FKA Twigs and Jeremy Allen White – the tale of two Calvin Klein ads

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that a Calvin Klein advert featuring FKA Twigs should be banned for presenting the singer as "a stereotypical sexual object".

The watchdog received two complaints, saying the images were "overly sexualised, offensive and irresponsible", "objectified women" and were "inappropriate for display in a place where anyone could see them", reported The Telegraph.

The ASA's ruling comes as Calvin Klein launched an underwear campaign featuring actor Jeremy Allen White that caused a "breathless response" after going viral, said Coco Khan in The Guardian. One such reaction was a New Yorker essay by Jennifer Wilson that described the photoshoot as "a time stamp of our own historical moment, a period of foiled pleasures and desires left on simmer".

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'Double standards'

Calvin Klein pushed back against the complaints, saying the adverts featuring FKA Twigs as well as American model Kendall Jenner "did not overly sexualise" the women and "were not irresponsible", and noting that the two women had approved the use of the images. 

However, the ASA disagreed about the FKA Twigs image, in which her "buttocks and breast were exposed, and her shirt was draped over one shoulder and drawn halfway across her body", the watchdog said. The ad caption read: "Calvins or nothing." 

The ASA upheld the complaints, saying that the "composition focused on her body rather than on the clothing being advertised" and that the image was "irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence". 

Calvin Klein has become well known for producing adverts "featuring beautiful models in various states of undress", said Cosmopolitan, and has had "years of pushing the boundaries". The company argued that the controversial campaign was "similar to those it had been releasing in the UK for many years", added Sky News.

FKA Twigs released a statement referencing the White photoshoot which said that "in light of reviewing other campaigns past and current of this nature, I can't help but feel there are some double standards here".

White "unintentionally caused a media storm", said Rebecca Cope at Grazia, as social media users fawned over his appearance and he was asked in television interviews whether he was prouder of his Calvin Klein ad than his Golden Globe win for his role in "The Bear". What "if the same line of questioning was applied to a female winner", asked Cope. 

While "women bear the brunt of unwanted objectification" every day, when does the reaction to White's campaign "go too far and veer into becoming a double standard"?

'Under pressure to be perfect'

White has seemed "somewhat uncomfortable" with the attention he has received, said The Independent. But he "knew what he was signing up for" when appearing in the ad, argued Cope. The "raison d’etre" of these Calvin Klein campaigns is to "get people talking".

The difference in reaction between the FKA Twigs and White adverts represents "sexist and racist double standards", said Nyome Nicholas-Williams in Glamour. White is "showing more skin" in his campaign yet it has been received with "open arms", representing the "blatant double standards that are forced on women, time and again", she argued.

There certainly appears to be some cognitive dissonance, agreed The Independent's Rowan Pelling. Is there really "progress" in calling one advert "irresponsible because they objectified women", but countenancing it when "women do the exact same thing to men", Pelling asked.

Though we should not "cry for young men", there is a growing trend that "younger men feel the pressure of this socially-licenced female gaze" and they can feel "under pressure from womankind to be perfect".

This style of advert also highlights a broader issue, suggested Khan in The Guardian. We are living in "a time obsessed by image" and are "forever being marketed at", but the "exceptional" people featured are always "downplaying the difference between their lives and ours", and we should "not measure ourselves against celebrities".

The reactions to the two Calvin Klein campaigns "speaks volumes", concluded Nicholas–Williams, and "is very reflective of the society we now live in".