FKA twigs Calvin Klein Ad Ban Partially Reversed

The recent ban on FKA twigs’ Calvin Klein ad has been partially lifted in the United Kingdom, BBC News reports.

A revised ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) was filed on March 6, and it cites the public response to the ad ban, as well as FKA twigs’ own criticism. “We’re not deaf to the commentary that surrounds our decision making,” the ASA wrote in a statement. The updated ruling maintains that the ad will be banned from display where it is more accessible to minors.

The Calvin Klein ad was investigated by the ASA after two complaints were lodged about the image, which depicts twigs’ body partially covered by a denim shirt, below the text “Calvins or nothing.” FKA twigs responded to the ruling in a social media post, refuting that the ad cast her as a “stereotypical sexual object,” per the ASA’s ruling. She instead referred to the image as a portrait of “a beautiful strong woman of colour whose incredible body has overcome more pain than you can imagine.”

In its new statement, the ASA wrote that, while regulators think the twigs ad is “overtly sexual (though not sexually explicit),” the Calvin Klein image “presented her as confident and in control and, therefore, she had not been presented as a stereotypical sexual object.”