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The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a marketing email sent by fashion brand Jaded London, ruling on 5 August that an image of a model holding a lit cigarette irresponsibly glamorised smoking.
The regulator upheld a single complaint about the email, which was sent on 27 May and showed a model standing by a scooter next to a body of water, wearing a pink backless mini dress with her back to the camera.
In its ruling, the ASA said the ad depicted “a young woman in fashionable clothing and accessories standing in front of a scooter next to a body of water, which the ASA considered evoked an aspirational holiday lifestyle”.
“She was holding a slim cigarette with visible ash at the tip, and we considered that suggested it was lit,” the watchdog said.
It added that the image was “heavily stylised and presented the model in a fashionable and attractive manner”. By associating that image with smoking, the ASA said, the ad “had the effect of portraying smoking as appealing and therefore irresponsibly glamorised it”.
The ad breached rule 1.3 of the CAP Code, which requires marketing communications to be prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and to society.
The ASA told Jaded London the ad must not appear again in the form complained about, and told the company to ensure future marketing communications were socially responsible and did not glamorise smoking.
Responding to the watchdog, Jaded London said it was not clear whether the model was holding a cigarette because it appeared slimmer than a typical cigarette and no smoke was visible in the image. It said that if viewers understood the object to be a cigarette, it did not appear to be lit.
The company also said the cigarette was not the focus of the ad because it was “less prominent than other elements of the image, such as the model’s clothing and accessories”.
Jaded London told the ASA it understood why it was best to avoid images of models holding cigarettes, and confirmed it would not use smoking content in future ads. The ASA said it welcomed that assurance but concluded the ad was irresponsible and breached the code.
Jaded London was founded in 2013 by siblings Jade Camber and Grant Goulden. Its clothes have been worn by Beyoncé and Kylie Jenner and are stocked in shops including Selfridges and Urban Outfitters. The brand has 1.5 million Instagram followers and recorded £51m of sales in the year to June 2025.
It is the second complaint the ASA has upheld against the company. In December 2024, the regulator banned an Instagram post promoting a footwear collaboration, ruling that images of women positioned between motorbike wheels objectified and sexualised them and were likely to cause serious offence.
The watchdog has taken a similar line with other clothing retailers over image-led marketing. In February 2022 it ruled that a Boohoo promotion featuring a model in a T-shirt and bikini bottoms was staged in a “sexually suggestive” way and told the retailer to prepare future ads with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society. In May this year the regulator banned two adverts for British beef and milk after concluding the carbon footprint claims they carried could not be substantiated.
At the time of writing, Jaded London’s Instagram feed contained several other images of people smoking while wearing its clothes.
A spokesperson for the ASA told Business Matters it was unable to comment on whether the other posts broke the rules without them going through its formal process.
“We’d always encourage anyone who has a concern about an ad they’ve seen to report it to us,” they added.
Jaded London was approached for comment.
