Old Man Who Doesn't Know FKA "twigs" From Michelle "Branch" Weighs In On Her CK Ad.

It shouldn't have been banned.

Buy your still cheap annual subscription here. I post approximately 240 articles a year, 80% of which are for paid subscribers only. And I ain’t slowing down/stopping. This is not a hobby, this my job, my livelihood. And I am The Best Ad Critic In The World™, which is akin to being the best hockey team in Paraguay, but there it is, fuckers.

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I’ve never, knowingly, seen/heard her perform; I only have so many seconds in any given day. I’ve read that she’s “critically acclaimed”. Being British, I assume that she’s much better than most current American popular female singers.

She’s got a cool different look/vibe. I can see why CK went with her. The “Calvins Or Nothing” line (or a version of it) dates to Brooke Shields in the 1980s.

You’ve probably heard that the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)—which seems to made up of the ghosts of Victorian prudes—banned the ad saying it portrayed a “stereotypical sexual object” and the “image’s composition placed viewers’ focus on the model’s body rather than on the clothing being advertised”. They banned it after receiving TWO (2) complaints. How the ASA works is: if they receive even ONE (1) complaint about an ad, they must investigate it.

Creatively, the visual pays off the line, which is a basic advertising method. As you can see, we can see half-a-boob, no nipple. I think the image’s composition places viewers’ focus about half on body and half on shirt. (OK, maybe 60-40).

Despite being old, I consider myself a progressive “new-age” man—although I occasionally look at (vintage-only) porn.

I am not the least bit offended by the ad. Sometimes, in private, women wear only a shirt. I’ve seen it. And folks buy clothes for many reasons. One of those reasons is: SEX. Sexiness. Sexuality. This “insight” dates to centuries ago.

Calvin Klein knows this. Let’s look at a few more CK ads from the last 20 years.

(photo by me) Back in 2010, this five-story poster was put up right outside our NYC office (in the Puck Building) on Houston St. The model is David Agbodji. The ad was part of the Calvin Klein Spring/Summer 2010 campaign. As you can see, Agbodji is quite naked, taut-as-fuck butt fully exposed. This poster was not banned by anybody.

(photo by me) One year earlier, this CK jeans poster occupied the same spot. As you can see, it is seemingly a mixed sexuality orgy: dude on floor doing his own thing. It was also not banned by anybody.

Forward to 2016. L—”I belfie (butt selfie) in #mycalvins. Female model unknown. Very sexual. R—The Biebs touching his pee-pee in #mycalvins. Neither ad was banned.

Lastly, from 2010, here’s famous CK model Lara Stone seemingly being gang-raped in public. Australia's Advertising Standards Bureau ordered the board pulled, finding it to be suggestive of rape and violence—though they acknowledged that the act depicted "could be consensual." The Bureau added: “...the image was demeaning to women by suggesting that she is a plaything of these men”.

It wasn’t erected in the UK, so who the Hell knows what the ASA would have ruled, if a complaint had been registered.