Oliviero Toscani, accused of blasphemy for the advertising of Jesus jeans

In 1973 Oliviero Toscani signs, in his style that will become iconic and unmistakable, the advertisements for the Italian Jesus brand jeans together with copywriters Emanuele Pirella and Michael Goettsche. The campaign consists of two images with a related claim. The first shows the androgynous bust of a model with unbuttoned jeans that reveal his pubis without underwear in the dim light and reads: ‘You won’t have any jeans but me’. The second advertisement shows the B-side of the model Donna Jordan with a pair of very short shorts and the slogan ‘Whoever loves me, follow me.

The accusation of blasphemy

On 17 May 1973 the Vatican, through the newspaper ‘L’Osservatore Romano’, accused the creators of the advertisement of blasphemy. The following day, a police sergeant from the vice squad shows up at the headquarters of the advertising agency, on a warrant from a magistrate, to seize the posters and photographs relating to Jesus jeans.

The image was read as the emblem of a youth and sexual revolution taking place in those years, but it was not free from controversy. The writer and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote an article in the ‘Corriere della Sera’, prophetically defining this advertising as “the new spirit of the second industrial revolution” anticipating the values ​​that were changing.