Nude American Apparel ads banned

Fashion retailer American Apparel, no stranger to controversy, has been rapped once more by the Advertising Standards Authority for running a series of adverts which gratuitously displayed the breasts and buttocks of its models.

Responding to a complaint that these pictures were “pornographic” the watchdog concurred, stating that they were “exploitative” with the “gratuitous nudity” likely to cause “serious and widespread offence”.

Defending its use of such imagery American Apparel said that the pics were equivalent to those routinely shared by friends on social networks, adding: “it was important to judge what was and was not offensive by reference to the current times and the views of the majority of decent and reasonable people, not a small and puritanically-minded minority".

The ads, which appeared on the American Apparel website and in print, with the fashion label warned “not to use similar images, which were exploitative of women or that inappropriately sexualised young women, in future.”