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Rabat – Spanish luxury fashion house Balenciaga is facing heavy criticism over its most recent campaign featuring two children posing with teddy bears that seem to be wearing bondage-styled outfits.
The campaign is part of Balenciaga’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection.
The campaign took the internet by storm enraging netizens, as people called for boycotting the brand while others called for legal action against Balenciaga for what they called “child porn.”
Balenciaga retracted the ads on Tuesday and deleted all pictures related to the campaign the next day. On Wednesday, it issued a public apology earlier this week saying: “We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused.”
The statement continued: “Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms,” the company wrote in a statement posted in an Instagram Story.
“We apologize for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign,” the company added 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.”
However, the company’s official apology did little to quell public anger as screenshots of the ads continue to trend online, and internet users are calling for celebrities with links to the brand to speak up.
“I thought people were trolling, but nope. It’s real. Maybe this is why Balenciaga left Twitter. They don’t want to be held accountable. Yes, these are children holding teddy bears dressed in bondage outfits,” one Twitter user wrote.
While the company said it will take legal action against the culprits, British media reports indicate that the fashion house is not suing the Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti who made the pictures, but is in fact suing the makers of another controversial campaign.
