For years, popular brands have been creating sexy advertisements displaying semi-naked models with beckoning eyes assuming erotic poses just to capture attention of customers. Yet, sometimes the sex concept goes beyond a reasonable limit, and the advertisement can be accused of being dirty and be banned. Geniusbeauty.com is presenting a review of the most controversial posters that never made their way to advertising hoardings and magazine covers.

Yves Saint Laurent

The famous photographer Steven Meisel created his own rendition of a very controversial Edouard Monet’s picture Breakfast on the Lawn (1863) for YSL. The impressionist’s picture depicted two dress man and a disrobed woman. Meisel preferred to photograph dressed Kate Moss in company of two naked young men. The advertisement was banned in Canada.

United Colours of Benetton

In 1996, controversial Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani put copulating horses on the advertising poster. Explaining the idea behind his picture, he said that the horses convey the immediacy of the nature that is becoming more difficult for us to understand in our artificial world. The posters were asked to be removed from shop windows.

This advertising was timed to coincide with the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic games. The posters were asked not to be displayed in shop windows.

The company’s executives claimed they wanted to draw the public’s attention to the AIDS problem by those posters. The posters were not banned but asked to be removed from shop windows.

Calvin Klein

The master of nude photography, Bruce Weber, made several black and white shoots for Calvin Klein which the respectful magazine Vanity Fair wouldn’t publish. The magazine said that the refusal boils down to that the photos were insulting to their readership.

Diesel

American feminists were outrageous at the advertisement. They claimed that the posters promoted sexism and went on TV to call for abandoning the brand’s products.

Jean Paul Gaultier

In 1995, the British Advertising Standards Authority found this poster as inappropriate. The reason was that the poster… could insult the idea of interracial marriages.

Gucci

This is of the latest Gucci advertising campaigns. The British Advertising Standards Authority considered this poster to be as violating to female dignity.

This shock advertising is already 11-years old. Male torso was supposed to shine from London billboards, but the Mayor turned it down, regarding the picture as revolting.

Emanuel Ungaro

This Emanuel Ungaro advertising appeared in 2002. Of all glossy magazines in the world, it was accepted for publishing only in American Vogue.

Versace

Again Steven Meisel, again naked bodies, and again publishing bans. This poster was never seen in Arab Emirates and Oman.

Sources of the images: press.benettongroup.com, blog.lib.umn.edu, creativeadvertisingworld.com, im-glowing.blogspot.com, perfume4u.co.uk, captivedaughters.org, graememitchell.com, stars-struck.blogspot.com.