Fashion designer Balenciaga issued an apology to the public after pulling its ad campaign showing two girls posing with teddy bears that appear to be wearing bondage-style harnesses.
The ads were created to showcase Balenciaga’s spring/summer 2023 collection, which debuted at Paris Fashion Week this fall. Gabriele Galimberti shot them.
In addition to the S&M teddy bears, they also showed other inappropriate accessories that shouldn’t be around children, including a chain leash and a dog collar choker.
In the apology letter, the company mentioned that the ad was for their holiday campaign, and would like to say sorry for featuring children in that kind of manner. They assured that they already removed the advertisement from all platforms.
Furthermore, they also talked about taking legal action against the parties responsible for the other ad. This ad features an unsettling document, which features abuse against children. The parties they mentioned are the production team that created the 2 separate campaigns.
They posted this apology statement via their Instagram story.
Although the fashion brand promptly pulled the campaign from all channels, it continues to circulate via social media snapshots, causing a backlash to continue.
the brand “Balenciaga” just did a uh….. interesting… photoshoot for their new products recently which included a very purposely poorly hidden court document about ‘virtual child porn’
normal stuff pic.twitter.com/zjMN5WhZ0s
— shoe (@shoe0nhead) November 21, 2022
One Twitter commenter looked closely at the photo and found it to depict a “poorly hidden document about virtual child porn.” The document appeared to be an excerpt from the 2008 ruling United States vs. Williams which upheld penalties for sexual abuse of children and other forms of child abuse.
People who saw the post are enraged and thought this issue might be the reason why the luxury brand left Twitter to not be held accountable.
However, their departure from the platform may be due to Elon Musk’s acquisition of it rather than the backlash the campaign is receiving. General Motors and Dyson also suspended their Twitter accounts after the platform changed hands.
