YSL Opium advert is eighth most complained about
Yves Saint Laurent's infamous Opium advert featuring a naked Sophie Dahl is the eighth most complained about advert in the last 50 years.
The infamous Yves Saint Laurent Opium perfume advert featuring a naked Sophie Dahl has been named as the eighth most-complained about in the last 50 years in a new survey released by the Advertising Standards Agency.
The campaign first made headlines in 2000 when the French fashion house plastered the image of red-headed Dahl, unclothed but for some sparkly jewels and a pair of heels and posing suggestively, on billboards around the country.
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Shot by Steven Meisel, Tom Ford - who was then the newly-appointed creative director of YSL - hoped the advert would put the then-ailing brand back on the fashion map whilst also giving a nod to house's history of sexual provocation and female liberation.
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Ford's technique worked and the image has since become synonymous with the house, and Opium - which was first launched in 1977 - remains one of YSL's best-known scents.
The ASA received 948 complaints that the image was too sexually suggestive and unsuitable to be seen by children. As a result it was removed from billboards, but was still allowed to be used in appropriate magazines.
Of the advert Dahl has said: "I think the photograph is beautiful... it was seen as being anti-women, when in fact I think it is very empowering to women."
The survey, which names the 10 most complained about adverts of the last 50 years, also includes campaigns by the likes of KFC, Volkswagen, Barnardos and Marie Stopes.
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