FKA twigs has defended a Calvin Klein advertisement she featured in that was banned earlier this week by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
The singer appeared in the poster ad dressed in a shirt held across her semi-nude body. Following two complaints from the public, the ASA said the ad framed her as a “stereotypical sexual object” and the “image’s composition placed viewers’ focus on the model’s body rather than on the clothing being advertised”. Calvin Klein had defended the pose in the advert as “natural and neutral”, and said the ad campaign “contained a progressive and enlightened message”.
FKA twigs has responded to the ban with a statement on Instagram:
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.
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 harness a unique embodied sensuality. thank you to ck and [photographers] mert and marcus, who gave me a space to express myself exactly how i wanted to – i will not have my narrative changed.
Her reference to “other campaigns past and current” likely encompasses the high-profile current men’s Calvin Klein underwear campaign fronted by US actor Jeremy Allen White. The adverts, which feature a muscular White in only a pair of boxer briefs, have attracted huge attention on social media and beyond since their debut last week. A rapturous New Yorker essay describes the photoshoot – which displays considerably more skin than the twigs image – as “a time stamp of our own historical moment, a period of foiled pleasures and desires left on simmer”.
FKA twigs’ reference to overcoming pain includes surgery in 2017 to remove six fibroid tumours from her uterus. Following the surgery she described the tumours as “the size of two cooking apples, three kiwis and a couple of strawberries. A fruit bowl of pain every day … I tried to be brave but it was excruciating at times and to be honest I started to doubt if my body would ever feel the same again … my confidence as a woman was knocked”.
The two complainants about the FKA twigs ad also objected to a pair of Calvin Klein ads featuring model Kendall Jenner, but the ASA did not ban them, arguing that one did not overly sexualise her and the other was characteristic of lingerie advertising.
