This advert may be for a fashion house, but the first thing you notice about the model isn’t her clothes – it’s her worryingly frail figure.
Promoting Yves Saint Laurent, the woman in a black dress and platform shoes lies artfully on the floor with her rib cage visible through her skin and astonishingly thin legs.
The image, which appeared in Elle magazine, triggered a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, which has ruled it was ‘irresponsible’.
The firm has also been censured by the watchdog for using ‘anorexia chic’ to promote its clothes and has been banned from using the picture.
Just last month, the ASA banned an advertisement for Prada featuring the young girlfriend of Hollywood A list actor Shia LaBeouf for appearing to sexualise a child.
And in December the watchdog banned an image of a particularly skinny young model wearing lingerie on the website of fashion chain Urban Outfitters on the basis it was ‘irresponsible and harmful’.
Campaigners have become increasingly alarmed over the use of advertising images to promote being thin as the normal, desired body shape and so effectively shaming women to conform.
There was an outcry in April over the ‘Are you beach body ready?’ posters put up by Protein World.
Critics said the image of a model in a bikini amounted to ‘fat shaming’ and it was subsequently banned from the London Underground.
On the Yves Saint Laurent advertisement, the ASA said: ‘An ad in Elle magazine, promoting a fashion brand, featured a black and white photograph of a woman lying on the floor with her hands on her head.
‘She had her eyes closed and was wearing a short black dress, a leather jacket and high heels.
‘The ASA considered that the model’s pose and the particular lighting effect in the ad drew particular focus to the model’s chest, where her rib cage was visible and appeared prominent, and to her legs, where her thighs and knees appeared a similar width, and which looked very thin, particularly in light of her positioning and the contrast between the narrowness of her legs and her platform shoes.
‘We therefore considered that the model appeared unhealthily underweight in the image and concluded that the ad was irresponsible.’
YSL said simply that it did not believe the model was unhealthily thin and refused to give any further defence or justification.
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