A fashion brand has had an advert banned by the advertising watchdog which it said was “glamourising smoking”.
Jaded London, whose clothes have been worn by Beyoncé and Kylie Jenner, used a picture of a woman on holiday holding a cigarette in one of its marketing emails.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the advert was “heavily stylised and presented the model in a fashionable and attractive manner”, which made smoking seem appealing.
Jaded London argued that the cigarette was not the “focus of the ad” but agreed to not use pictures of models smoking in future.
The ASA’s rules on socially responsible marketing say smoking should not be presented in an appealing way, condoned or encouraged.
The Jaded London email, which went out on 27 May, was investigated after a complaint to the watchdog.
In its ruling, the ASA said the woman was wearing “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,” it added.
The ASA told the brand to stop using the ad and “ensure that their future marketing communications were socially responsible”.
Founded by siblings Jade Camber and Grant Goulden in 2013, Jaded London has amassed 1.5 million Instagram followers and is particularly popular among young people.
Its clothes are stocked in shops including Selfridges and Urban Outfitters and it made £51m of sales in the year to June 2025.
Responding to the watchdog, Jaded London argued it was “not clear” the model was holding a cigarette because it was slimmer than normal and “did not appear to be lit”.
The company also argued it was “less prominent than other elements of the image, such as the model’s clothing and accessories”.
However, it said it “understood why it was best to avoid images of models holding cigarettes” and would not use smoking content in future ads.
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 the BBC 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.
By BBC
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