CALVIN YANKS ADS

Thursday April 22, 1999 12:00 AM EDT

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Calvin Klein has pulled an ad campaign that featured a black and white photo of youngsters jumping up and down on a couch in his new line of designer children's underwear. The ad caused concerns that the clothing company was using the children in the photo as sexual objects and that the photos, which featured the outlines of the children's genitals, bordered on the pornographic. A statement from Calvin Klein says the campaign -- which drew fire from Rosie O'Donnell, who announced she would never wear anything from CK again -- was intended to capture the warmth and spontaneity found in a family snap-shot, and that the company had not fully considered the issues critics have raised about the ads. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called the campaign in very bad taste but said there was nothing he could do to stop it, citing First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech. No stranger to controversy (or the publicity it tends to spark), Klein pulled a 1995 campaign showing teens in sexually suggestive poses that was criticized by President Clinton and investigated by the FBI.