Editor’s Note:
Over the years, I debated deleting this post but decided to revise it instead.
When I originally wrote it, the internet was awash in moral-outrage-fueled critiques, and I wove that tone into the piece without clearly separating my own voice from the broader discourse.
Looking back, I still stand by the core argument: a brand operating at this level of creative control has no excuse for letting something like this slip through. Blaming external partners doesn’t hold up when the work is so tightly curated.
That said, I recognize that parts of the piece may have implied malicious intent where I meant to critique oversight and poor judgment.
I’ve updated the article to better reflect that distinction, but wanted to clarify for anyone who read the original.
In the past, I’ve argued for leniency when judging brands by their ad campaigns. But there is nothing accidental or unintentional about this scandal when we factor in the overall concept and execution.
A weak excuse that a third party ‘provided all props’ just doesn’t cut it, and I feel the topic deserves some real, honest examination.
A LITTLE BIT OF BACKGROUND
Balenciaga has always been a little weird.
The Spanish Fashion House built its brand on pushing the boundaries of Avant-garde fashion and has made a lot of fans over the years by going left when everyone else was going right.
From atrocious green high-heeled crocs to a $3000 tote that looks like a bag of blankets, the brand has always been fun, quirky and more than a little eccentric.
Often straying into intentionally edgy territory other companies wouldn’t touch.
Shock factor is a part of their ethos. And, often in high-fashion, part of pushing boundaries can mean challenging social norms or exploring dark, sexual and thought-provoking imagery.
Something Balenciaga usually does quite well.
But everything about their new ‘Gift Collection’ campaign is dotted with question marks that can’t be brushed off as a ‘series of grievous errors’.
It’s left a lot of people questioning what the hell happened.
But digging through tweets and statements for clarity has also created a kind of conspiracy-narrative that’s easy to latch onto thanks in part to the bizarre choices the brand made and their lack of real accountability.
THE GIFT COLLECTION CAMPAIGN
Balenciaga released its holiday ad campaign in November of this year and was almost immediately met with widespread backlash from long-time fans and outsiders alike.
The shoot featured young children holding teddy bear bags surrounded by bondage items and, in some cases, alcohol. The execution left many parents of young children incredibly disturbed.
The concept took inspiration from award-winning National Geographic photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s “Toy Stories” collection, which featured children from all over the world standing in rooms with their toys.
How such an innocent concept went so horribly wrong with a team of people working to bring it to life is hard to deconstruct. But not so impossible that it couldn’t have been avoided.
According to Galimberti, Balenciaga invited him to photograph for them in the same style as his original collection but wanted to provide different props for the set to give it a ‘punk’ feel.
On paper, this makes a lot of sense when you consider Balenciaga’s overall brand image and their reputation as a fashion house.
Internet Sleuthing Creates an Unstoppable Narrative
While the Gift Collection scandal was blowing up, a photo from a separate ad featuring a Balenciaga x Adidas hourglass purse in the Garde-Robe spring 2023 collection surfaced online and quickly added fuel to the fire.
Upon closer inspection, two bizarre details to the set added an extra layer of creepy to an already controversial ad campaign. And led many to speculate the fashion house creative team had some darker, hidden agenda or messaging going on behind the scenes.
A document in one of the shots included a copy of a Supreme Court case, United States v. Williams, ruling that pornographic images featuring children do not count as freedom of speech.
A book used for set dressing happens to be Michaël Borremans controversial Fire from the Sun, which features gory depictions of young, naked children playing with decapitated hands and viscera.
How something like this could happen by coincidence in a single photoshoot is baffling. And back-to-back with the already controversial Gift Collection campaign, it wasn’t hard for even long-time fans to read a message of support for child exploitation in the details provided.
And who could blame them?
When you consider the role of prop houses and set decorators, these kinds of images may not be scrutinized on-site if they appear in the background or out of focus.
But most prop houses catalogue their materials and even have specific request processes for pieces based on what the client needs.
So, at some point these items were sourced, reviewed, approved and catalogued for use by future clients without a single person raising any follow-up questions.
BALENCIAGA RESPONDS
By November 24th, Balenciaga issued two statements via Instagram, apologizing first for featuring children in the Gift Collection.
“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.”
And then stated they would be taking legal action against the company that provided props for the set.
“We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign…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 photo shoot. We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children’s safety and well-being.”
While Balenciaga has wiped its Instagram clean and issued further apologies, I feel a fundamental part of the conversation is missing.
IT'S NOT ABOUT THE TEDDY BEARS
There are usually only two reasons an ad campaign blows up this spectacularly.
- A lack of diversity within the marketing team leads to tone-deaf takes on concepts that are easy to spot by anyone outside of the ‘bubble.’
- Sheer ignorance. (i.e. DiGiorno’s #whyIstayedblunder).
However, I don’t believe this is true for Balenciaga because of their unique position as a brand that regularly and expertly navigates edgy creative campaigns all the time.
First of all, Dolls Kill has been successfully marketing BDSM teddy bears sans children for a while. So this is not a new concept in fashion.
Bondage themed teddy bears are actually very popular in alternative, punk and edgy fashion scenes so, there are plenty of campaigns to take inspiration from if you look.
Second of all. Balenciaga was not advertising BDSM-themed bears.
Galimberti stated in an interview the set dressing team had to dress the bears up in leather chokers, lacey thongs and other accessories for the shoot.
This suggests the BDSM theme was added with intention to create a sense of contrast or friction as a way to market the items being promoted in the Gift Collection.
Third of all, and this is a big one, it’s not really about the teddy bears at all.
Many successful ad campaigns have proven you can use children in ads that have adult themes without sexualizing them or creating uncomfortable narratives.
Condom commercials and this excellent ad from Liquid Death feature children in scenarios that allude to adult activities, but there is an emphasis on it being a joke that makes it enjoyable.
And from previous Balenciaga campaigns, it’s pretty apparent the brand knows how to portray humour in a way that aligns with its branding.
Yet they chose to portray unsmiling children alone in a room surrounded by clear allusions to bondage and alcohol consumption without any of the fun the brand is known for.
It’s so wildly off-brand, it creates a vacuum for speculation to run amok where the concept might have worked in a slightly different form.
The unfortunate decorations in the Garde-Robe shoot are easy enough to hand-wave away as an unfortunate choice by the rental house.
(I do find it interesting Balenciaga dropped the $25 million lawsuit almost as quickly as they brought it up).
These smaller, legal details suggest there may be agreements or contracts behind the scenes that make fashion houses far more responsible for vetting their props than Balenciaga’s official statement suggests.
I also find it hard to believe a major fashion house was not already using the kinds of controls they promise to use moving forward.
As a relatively young marketing company that produces ad campaigns for small businesses, we are intimately familiar with the approval process required before a set, models, art direction, and content are greenlit for production, let alone publishing.
And most of the time these clients aren’t even at risk of stepping into controversial territory. They just care about curating a positive, coherent brand image.
Child exploitation is not a nuanced issue that requires diversity within a team to avoid bad optics in the same way problems of body positivity, sexism or racism might require additional oversight.
It should be incredibly obvious at this point to anybody, regardless of background, that it is not appropriate to put miserable-looking children in sexually suggestive situations to sell merchandise.
So, there isn’t even really anyone to point to other than Balenciaga for not understanding how incredibly important the safety and happiness of children is to…just about everyone in the world?
FINAL THOUGHTS
It isn’t fair to punish the photographers who shot these ads when the groundwork for concepts and their execution are all overseen by the creative team.
The prop house may deserve some blame for cataloging items without examining them closely.
However, it is baffling that so many people involved in the production from Balenciaga’s team would overlook the narrative being created in favour of being ‘edgy’.
Especially when every campaign is so heavily curated and tightly controlled at every step of the process.
As someone who eats, breathes and sleeps marketing, I believe Balenciaga took a deliberate and calculated risk with this campaign to bridge the gap between play and punk fashion, which could have worked.
But failed to take into account how obsessive internet culture is with background details and the depiction of children in general—the two areas where high editorial and creative standards need to be the most aggressive.
They poured most of their creative energy into the surface-level presentation like so many fashion houses do. Then when they faced backlash tried to push blame onto smaller partners to preserve their reputation.
But that lack of true accountability may end up costing them their reputation and a large chunk of their customer base.
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