Everything you need to know about Balenciaga’s controversial ad campaign
The campaign gathered not just backlash but has turned ugly with the brand filing a lawsuit against the makers of the ad.
Hyderabad: While it may be true that the high-end fashion brand Balenciaga is just running a social experiment with one pointless product after another, the ‘modern’ brand becoming party to a pedophilic ad campaign was highly unlikely.
Released at the Paris Fashion Week, the campaign was for the French fashion brand’s spring/summer collection. The campaign gathered not just backlash but has turned ugly with the brand filing a lawsuit against the makers of the ad.
Also Read
What’s problematic with the campaign?
The problem is with two different sets of pictures of their campaigns. The first, an advertisement promoting their collaboration with the sporting brand Adidas featured a set of court documents in the background.
A nice and stylish black bag was placed on top of a few papers; the papers were allegedly from a United States Supreme Court ruling about the use of indecent images of children. Why would they use court-related documents to promote brand collaboration? No one knows.
The second is the most obvious-looking and disgusting set of images, which show female children holding stuffed teddy bears. Now, what is wrong with young girls holding teddy bears you may ask? If only the teddy bears were not fitted with bondage gear.
Bondage or BDSM is the practice of tying or restraining a sexual partner for pleasure, and honestly, as far as both the parties are consensual and adults, there is nothing wrong with it.
The outrage
As soon as the images were shared on Balenciaga’s social media platforms, the brand experienced heavy backlash not just from regular social media users and activists but also from some noted names in the industry.
YouTuber June Nicole Lapine’s tweet was the most circulated. “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’ (sic),” she wrote.
https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/1594532715126202368
Kim Kardashian has also tweeted expressing her concerns and said that she is re-evaluating her ties with the brand. Kim is a frequent collaborator with Balenciaga.
“As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images. The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period (sic),” she said in a series of tweets on the matter.
Balenciaga’s response
The French fashion brand which continues to be criticised has removed the pictures from its social media handles and published an apology.
View this post on Instagram
“We could have done things differently,” they said. The fashion house has taken full responsibility for the campaign but said that the court documents used were by a third-party organisation.
They also said that internal reviews are happening to change the way they work, and reinforce structures around creative processes and others.
Additionally, Balenciaga has filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court against the production company North Six Inc. and set designer Nicholas Des Jardins for using documents related to a child pornography case in photos of the ad campaign without their permission.
They are seeking at least $25 million in damages from the production company.
