The UK banned a Calvin Klein ad featuring a semi nude FKA Twigs. Now the musician is speaking out

FKA Twigs has shot back at the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after the organisation banned a Calvin Klein advertisement featuring the musician.

The musician took to social media today to call out "double standards" imposed on her in light of a different Calvin Klein underwear advertisement featuring actor Jeremy Allen White going viral earlier in the week. 

The poster advertisement the ASA banned featured the singer with a dark, denim dress shirt draped over half of her semi-nude body. 

The ASA received two complaints over the ads, which were seen in April 2023. They accused the ad of being "offensive and irresponsible, because they objectified women" and that it was "inappropriate for display in an untargeted medium".

In its agreement with the complaints, the ASA said the ad, "used nudity and centred on FKA Twig's physical features rather than the clothing" to the extent of presenting her as a "stereotypical sexual object".

It concluded that the ad was "irresponsible", "likely to cause offence" and ordered that the ad must cease to be shown in its current form.

The two complaints also targeted a different Calvin Klein ad that featured model Kendall Jenner.

However, the ASA rejected the allegation that the Jenner ad was offensive.

"The level of nudity was not beyond that which people would expect for a lingerie ad," it said.

Despite Jenner also featuring in her ad topless with her hands covering her breasts, the ASA concluded that "it did not focus on the model’s body more generally in a manner that portrayed her as a sexual object".

In Calvin Klein's response to the investigation, the company asserted that because the regular ad changeover cycle and the age of the ad in question, it's no longer being displayed.

"The images were not vulgar and were of two confident and empowered women who had chosen to identify with the Calvin Klein brand," the company said, adding that the ads contained a "progressive and enlightened message".

Calvin Klein also confirmed that both women had collaborated in the artistic process and approved them before publication.

'I will not have my narrative changed'

In response to the ASA ruling, FKA Twigs took to Instagram to voice her support for the ad and her disappointment at its removal.

FKA Twigs has previously been open about the health struggles referenced in the post.

In 2018, she shared on social media that she had undergone laparoscopic surgery to remove six fibroid tumours from her uterus.

She said that the tumours were the size of "two cooking apples, three kiwis and a couple of strawberries" and resulted in a "fruit bowl of pain every day".

Calvin Klein advertising campaigns are notorious for featuring celebrities in various states of undress.

Most recently, a Calvin Klein underwear campaign featuring The Bear star Jeremy Allen White went viral for its focus on the actor's body.

A recent New Yorker essay praising the Allen White campaign, which shows the actor only in tight underwear, called the photoshoot: "A timestamp of our own historical moment, a period of foiled pleasures and desires left on simmer."

FKA Twigs said the reaction to her ad represented a double standard in the industry.

"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 said.

She also said she felt "empowered" by the image.

"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 harness a unique embodied sensuality," she said.

"Thank you to CK and Mert and Marcus who gave me a space to express myself exactly how I wanted to."