American Apparel has just achieved its sixth ad ban by the ASA in two and half years.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency has just banned this ad.

There seems to be little need to explain why the ad – called School Days and launched during back-to-school campaign season in the UK – was pulled, but here is the official reason anyway:

The ASA found the images to be, “gratuitous and objectified women, and were therefore sexist and likely to cause serious and widespread offence” because the models’ heads and upper body were hidden, and the focus of the shots was on the butt and groin rather than the skirt.

“Furthermore, we considered the images imitated voyeuristic ‘up-skirt’ shots which had been taken without the subject’s consent or knowledge which, in the context of an ad for a skirt marketed to young women, we considered had the potential to normalise a predatory sexual behaviour,” the ASA added.

To be fair to American Apparel, the ad above was banned after the ASA received just two complaints.

American Apparel defended the images on the grounds that:

1. Its approach was not graphic, explicit or pornographic, but was designed to show a range of different images of people who were natural, not posed and real. It stated that the models were shown in a relaxed and comfortable pose and not in a manner which was vulnerable, negative or exploitative.

2. The images had not been printed publicly. The ads were posted on American Apparel’s website and social media pages. The company claimed that only “consumers who had ‘opted in’ to see images consistent with their branding” would see the.

3. The model is 30 years old in real life.

4. American Apparel does not sell official school uniforms of any sort and claimed that the images were not part of a school campaign or marketing drive. The ASA’s rebuttal was that the ‘School Days’ and ‘BTS’ lookbooks (which it understood to refer to Back to School) clearly signified schoolwear.

Will American Apparel “make sure future ads contain nothing that was likely to cause serious or widespread offense”? Unlikely. It has a range called Lolita and has just run a series of outdoor posters in Los Angeles, with the line, “We’re not politically correct — But we have good ethics,” adding that the company does not use sweatshops.

American Apparel is definitely on a roll with one thing on its mind:

[These three ads have achieved bans in the US or UK too]

It is not so gung ho about controversy around its people though. In fact, the company has just fired its founder, Dov Charney, due to an ongoing investigation into allegations of his misconduct and sexual harassment towards employees.

New co-chairman, Allan Mayer, explained that “a board can’t make decisions on the basis of rumours and stories in newspapers.

This is not easy, but we felt the need to do what we did for the sake of the company. Our decision to do what we did was not the result of any problems with the company’s operations.”

Charney founded American Apparel in 1989 and it is now the largest single clothing factory in the United States with more than 4,000 workers.  The brand’s USP is that all its clothes are manufactured in downtown Los Angeles, meaning that its products are sweatshop-free.