The Balenciaga F**k Up

Google revenge and you’ll get Blair Waldorf, similarly, google cancelled and you have Balenciaga.

Back in November of 2022, Balenciaga dropped its Spring 2023 campaign ads. A harmless thing you might think, but it turned out to cause one of the biggest fashion scandals in history, leaving Balenciaga to warm its seat in the below 10’s of luxury brands. Wanna know what happened? Read on.

Balenciaga is, or should we say was, a high-end Spanish-born luxury brand. It sells ready-to-wear shoes, handbags, and accessories. With, world-renowned ambassadors like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber, it was quick to bring out cherished collections time and time again, but eventually, its fifteen minutes of fame came to an end.

The Spring 2023 collection featured children holding teddy bears with bondage harnesses and costumes. While this may be overlooked by the general public, fashion critics found the campaign to promote BDSM and other sexual advances. BDSM bondage and harnesses were also showcased at many Balenciaga runways earlier in the year, making such assumptions easy to digest. When this may seem enough to anger a crowd, another collab ad with Adidas featured a bag on top of what seemed to be copied from a Supreme Court case United States vs. Williams.

What makes this entire scandal so interesting is that every Supreme Court case was a ruling that upheld the PROTECT act which increased federal protections against child pornography.

What makes this certain case even more intriguing is how both the campaigns tie in so perfectly with each other. Who thought of using children to model for the bondage campaign? What was the Supreme Court case copies doing in the range of the camera in the first place?

Demna, the director for Balenciaga has issued public statements via his Instagram handle apologizing profusely for the ad and vowing to never repeat these mistakes again. The photographer for the campaigns has also come forward and distanced himself from the situation, claiming that he simply had taken the photos and was nowhere to blame for the set design.

Social media, personality, Kim Kardashian has also announced that she will be “reevaluating her relationship with Balenciaga” for future projects and had been in no way shape or form aware of their recent immoral behaviour.

In the subsequent time after the incidents, Balenciaga filed lawsuits against set designer Nicholas Des Jardins and North Six Inc. for 25 million dollars for the case documents only, claiming that they did not approve any such set conditions for the shoot to take place and that it was completely the “defendants misconduct”, Balenciaga said that it had taken place without their authorization and that it was now being falsely accused in the media for the “repulsive and deeply disturbing court decision”. The defendant’s manager fired back professing that all Balenciaga members were present at the point of the photo shoot and worked on the edits together. The manager, Gabriela Moussaieff, told the Washington Post that the documents were obtained from a prop house that rented out such props for photo shoots. Balenciaga ended up dropping the lawsuit.

Balenciaga filed lawsuits against set designer Nicholas Des Jardins and North Six Inc. for 25 million dollars, claiming they did not approve the shoot. The defendant's manager denied this, claiming the documents were obtained from a prop house and that all members of Balenciaga were on board and helped in editing the photos Balenciaga ended up dropping the lawsuit.

Balenciaga has not yet received the last of the beating stick though, the outlets and store remain barren and the holiday season though most profitable has served to be very bad. Balenciaga director Demna was all set to receive the 2022 Global Voices Award at the BoF Voices convention, but the convention committee has backtracked her award in light of recent events and released public statements talking about how they choose to put the safety of children in the highest regard, nonetheless, they kept the invite offer open to Balenciaga to talk during the convention and offer an explanation, but Balenciaga refused their offer.

Balenciaga director Demna was set to receive the 2022 Global Voices Award, but the convention committee rescinded it due to recent events, although the committee invited Balenciaga to come and offer an explanation for the recent behaviour at the event, which the brand refused. Balenciaga stores and outlets remain barren and the holiday store though most profitable has served to be very bad.

This scandal remains different from others of its line, with elements like purpose and motive creating higher grounds for critical evaluation. Balenciaga has proved itself to stay in the high-tail luxury brand game with its innovative and avant-garde designs for over 100 years, and it's remarkable to see such a brand with such a strong foundation crumble so quickly. Over the years, it is obvious to anticipate many controversies that may have shaken them but it seems this incident was the final straw.