Warehouse advert featured ‘unhealthily thin’ model, ASA rules

The advertising watchdog deemed the image ‘irresponsible’

A Warehouse advert was reported to the Advertising Standards Authority for featuring an ‘unhealthily thin’ model (ASA)

An advert by fast fashion retailer Warehouse has been banned after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that its model was “unhealthily thin”.

The watchdog concluded that the advert, which showed the model wearing a bodysuit and an oversized leather jacket, was “irresponsible”.

It received a complaint about the image which appeared in a product listing on Warehouse’s website in February.

In it, the model was wearing the jacket draped off her left shoulder, with a high-cut bodysuit underneath that exposed her legs.

Warehouse told the ASA that it believed the image did not present the model as appearing “unhealthily thin”. The company said the model was a UK size eight and had a BMI which fell withi the NHS standard of a “healthy weight”.

The retailer argued that it was “wrong to suggest that the image presented her in an irresponsible manner”.

According to the ASA, Warehouse further argued that “due to prevailing standards in society around the perception of body types, it would be insensitive to label the model as promoting an ‘unhealthy’ and ‘thin’ body type.”

It said it promoted body inclusivity and worked closely with model agencies to hire a range of models who “represent women of all body types across the UK”.

But the ASA said in its ruling that the model’s visible shoulder and upper arm “appeared small and narrow”, and her “collar bone and torso… appeared very thin”.

Warehouse advert featuring a model wearing an oversized jacket and bodysuit (ASA)

The watchdog added that the way the model was posed gave her knee and thigh “the appearance of being very narrow” and also made her hip bone “appear particularly pronounced.

“We considered that the pose and styling of her legs emphasised her slimness in a manner which made her appear unhealthily thin,” it said, concluding that the ad was “irresponsible” and “must not appear again in its current form”.

The Independent has contacted Warehouse for comment.

The issue of body image in the modelling industry has shifted over the years, but appearing thin is still a priority for many fashion brands and modelling agencies.

Most recently, former model Esmeralda Seay-Reynolds told Variety that when she was 16, she received some unsafe advice from her agent about how to stay slim.

She claimed that her agent at the time, from NEXT Management, told her: “Cotton balls are organic, so it’s fine if you just swallow them to make yourself feel full.”

Joel Wilkenfeld, co-founder of the agency, told the publication: “If a model would have brought that to our attention, that agent would have been fired right there on the spot.”