Clothing, shoes and jewellery

Helpful information on the advertising rules for products or services that relate to any type of wearable garment or accessory, and the fashion industry in general.

Ads for clothing, shoes and jewellery often come under fire for promoting unhealthy body images and causing body confidence issues by showing unrealistic body types. While this is a wider societal debate and provides challenges that regulation doesn’t hold all the answers to, we do our best to ensure ads are responsible and have banned ads that don’t encourage positive body image.

The advertising rules state that ads should be prepared with a degree of social responsibility and in fashion ads, this can mean making sure models don’t appear unhealthily thin. It’s also important in the fashion industry to make sure children are protected and we have strict rules on protecting children from sexualised images and being the object of sexualisation themselves.

Images that feature suggestive or sexualised imagery such as children in heavy make-up or provocative poses are likely to fall foul of our rules. Advertisers should be aware these rules apply to models that look under the age of 16 even if they are in fact older.

Other symbols of youth, such as school uniforms, are also almost certainly unacceptable if used in a sexual context.

Another problem area for ads relating to clothing, shoes and jewellery is hidden charges such as delivery or costs for returning goods. Advertisers, especially those whose sales are largely or exclusively via the Internet, often offer goods at prices that exclude delivery charges. This is only acceptable under the advertising rules if the customer can collect the product themselves, say from a warehouse or retail outlet.

Advertisers should also avoid using definitive claims such as "FREE DELIVERY WHEN SPENDING OVER £200" and "FREE DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS" if additional delivery charges apply to some postcodes.

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Latest rulings

Sterling Wholesale Ltd t/a Moncrief
- Upheld
- 18 September 2024
A website made misleading claims that all of its products were handmade in Italy, and that they had frequently been featured in top international fashion magazines.
We Are TALA Ltd
- Upheld
- 22 May 2024
Two Instagram reels and four TikToks on influencer Grace Beverly's accounts were not obviously identifiable as ads.
Prettylittlething.com Ltd t/a Prettylittlething.com
- Upheld
- Social media (own site)
- 15 May 2024
A series of tweets misleadingly implied that a promotion included all product lines, failed to include the closing dates or times of the promotion and misleadingly implied that further discounts would not be available when the promotion ended.
The Sky Mining Company Ltd t/a Sky Mining
- Press general, Internet (website content), Social media (own site)
- 10 April 2024
A press ad, Instagram ad and website did not make it clear that the company’s diamonds were synthetic, which was misleading.

View all rulings

Clothing, shoes and jewellery

Helpful information on the advertising rules for products or services that relate to any type of wearable garment or accessory, and the fashion industry in general.

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