Designer fashion brand Balenciaga issued an apology for not one, but two concurrent ad campaigns that featured disturbing images of children posing with “bondage” teddy bears, alcohol, and documents referencing a child pornography law.
Balenciaga was raked over the coals by social media users for using “disgusting” images of young children posing with BDSM inspired teddy bears along with an array of items that included choke chains, champagne glasses, beer candles, dog collars, and a leash.
In one “creepy” shot, which was featured on the company’s Instagram, a toddler aged girl lays on her stomach in front of an assortment of a weird spiked metal dog bowl, wine glasses, a flask, barrettes, and a chain that read: “BB.”
Twitter users were horrified by the campaign and called for a boycott of the brand. “This is child pornography. People should be arrested,” one person wrote.
“This should be banned,” another added. “Don’t buy Balenciaga.”
In an even stranger twist, in separate campaign that featured a collaboration with Adidas, popular Twitter account Shoe, noted that the purse Balenciaga was trying to hawk was on top of a document about the U.S. Supreme Court opinion about a child pornography law loophole.
The company issued an apology in an Instagram story for both holiday ad campaigns. “Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign,” the statement read. “We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms.”
In a follow-up, the luxury brand also apologized for “displaying unsettling documents,” but denied any internal knowledge of the marketing material prior to the uproar.
“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,” the post continued.
“We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children safety and well-being.”
Twitter users weren’t so convinced that the company’s ignorance of their own marketing material.
“The fact that a campaign has so many people that need to approve it’s concept before creating just makes no sense they would be surprised,“ one person replied.
“Whoever thought this was a good idea is obviously in charge of brand identity,” another said. “That person doesn’t belong anywhere near kids.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson went as far to point out that the company’s marketing campaign, combined with Jeffrey Epstein’s continued association with high profile millionaires and politicians after his arrest for sexual assault of minors, was “evidence” that that the rich and powerful tolerate pedophilia.
“Whoever staged the photo shoot made certain to include a portion of that opinion that use the word “sex” or “sexual” four times and of course, that was not an accident,” he said on Wednesday.
“Balenciaga wanted you to notice. This seemed like a big story to us as we told you last night. Here you have a major international retail brand promoting kiddie porn and sex with children and not promoting it subtly, but right out in the open.”
He accused the liberal media of ignoring the story because, along with some academics, they’re trying to “send the message that actually it’s not that big a deal” to society that a subset of people are now defined as “minor attracted persons.”
“There was not a single story about it in the New York Times this morning, or Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post or on CNN or NBC,” Carlson stated. “There was no talk of an investigation or a boycott. The usual outraged merchants stayed completely silent because they weren’t outraged.”
To his point, brand ambassador Kim Kardashian posted a selfie while wearing an outfit from the Balenciaga and Adidas collaboration.
Conservative commentator Candace Owens blasted Kardashian for supporting the company during the controversy.
“Let’s see if she’ll use that same platform to condemn the blatant child pornography documents being promoted in #Balenciaga ads, since she is one of the faces of the brand,” Owens tweeted on Wednesday.
“In case you need help with wording, a simple, “I condemn child pornography and all of its forms” should suffice—as well as an open commitment to disassociate from the brand entirely. It is literal child pornography. Anything less than this would be unacceptable,” she added in a separate post.