This time, Balenciaga has gone too far, and even they know it!
The controversial luxury fashion house has once again come under fire.
This time, for an inappropriate ad campaign showing two young girls wearing Balenciaga clothes holding stuffed fluffy teddy bears dressed in bondage-looking gear.
The one image showed a little girl wearing an all-black outfit holding the strap connected to a white bear, which was in a vest with a padlocked choker around its neck.
In the other images, a brunette girl wearing a blue outfit is seen holding a lilac teddy that’s wearing what looks like BDSM attire.
The visuals caused obvious outrage, especially since one of them features what appears to be an excerpt from a US Supreme Court case that upheld part of a federal child pornography law.
The design house, which rarely seems to care about public opinion, has now withdrawn the campaign from all its platforms.
They took to Instagram to offer the following apology, “We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused. Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms.”
On the second slide, it says: “We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign,” the company continued in its statement. “We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring 23 campaign photoshoot. We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children’s safety and well-being.”
The photographer, Gabriele Galimberti, who shot the campaign, issued a statement on Instagram as well after receiving hate mail and messages because of the photographs.
“Following the hundreds of hate mails and messages I received as a result of the photos I took for the Balenciaga campaign, I feel compelled to make this statement.”
“I am not in a position to comment Balenciaga’s choices, but I must stress that I was not entitled in whatsoever manner to neither choose the products, nor the models, nor the combination of the same.”
“As a photographer, I was only and solely requested to light the given scene and take the shots according to my signature style. As usual for a commercial shooting, the direction of the campaign and the choice of the objects displayed are not in the hands of the photographer.”
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