British singer, songwriter, and dancer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, known professionally as FKA Twigs, is responding to the banning of her Calvin Klein advertisement by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) this past week. The ad was banned on the grounds that it made her a “stereotypical sexual object,” to which she has since responded by saying that the ban is a result of “double standards.”
The black and white poster ad features her dressed in a shirt held across her semi-nude body, conveying a sexual theme that is usually what characterizes Calvin Klein ads.
Following two complaints from the public, the ASA issued the ban and said the ad overly sexualized her and the “image’s composition placed viewers’ focus on the model’s body rather than on the clothing being advertised.”
In a statement posted on Instagram, FKA twigs retaliated to the UK ASA’s comments claiming “I do not see the ‘stereotypical sex object’ that they have labeled me. I see a beautiful strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine.”
Her mention of overcoming pain likely includes her previous illness and 2017 surgery in which six fibroid tumors were removed from her uterus.
“In light of reviewing other campaigns past and current of this nature, I can’t help but feel there are some double standards here,” she went on to say in the post.
She proceeded to reassert her pride in her physical image, and paid tribute to other black women like Josephine Baker, Eartha Kitt, and Grace Jones “who broke down barriers of what it looks like to be empowered and harness a unique embodied sexuality,” and finished her response by asserting, “I will not have my narrative changed.”
FKA Twigs’ reference to other similarly provocative campaigns that have not been as widely censured likely alludes to the current men’s Calvin Klein underwear campaign that features American actor Jeremy Allen White, which contains an array of images of him in no more than a pair of boxer briefs. The campaign has been publicly displayed all over the NYC streets, and has garnered much positive attention in the media since its release. A New Yorker essay described it as “a time stamp of our own historical moment, a period of foiled pleasures and desires left on simmer.”
Calvin Klein has publicly defended the pose of FKA Twigs in the advertisement, defining it as “natural and neutral,” and claiming the campaign “contained a progressive and enlightened message.”
The two complaints that were received by the ASA also called out a pair of Calvin Klein ads that feature Kendall Jenner in a provocative fashion, but they only banned FKA Twigs’ campaign, asserting that Jenner’s was not overtly sexual and less like a lingerie advertisement.
