Thousands of Twitter users were aghast at Balenciaga’s new ad campaign featuring several child models holding fetish-themed teddy bear purses.
One girl standing on a pink bed displayed a bear wearing fishnets, restraints around its wrists and ankles, and a padlock around its neck. Another hugged a bear with leather bondage gear around its body.
Balenciaga first debuted BDSM teddy bears at their October 2022 “mud show,” where former collaborator Kanye West led the runway. The brand’s parent company, Kering, severed ties with the rapper after his inflammatory remarks about Jewish people. They claimed a moral high ground over Ye – now, they’ve unequivocally lost it by subtly normalizing pedophilia.
One especially eerie shot included a poorly obscured court document concerning virtual child porn materials on a table next to a Balenciaga x adidas collaboration handbag.
Anti-trafficking activist Laila Mickelwait claimed the document referenced a 2002 Supreme Court case called Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, in which two provisions of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act were deemed overly broad, thereby legalizing virtual or fake images or videos of child sexual abuse.
Others hypothesized it came from a 2008 case United States v. Williams, which involved a man who solicited child exploitation materials in an online chat forum. Agents seized “at least 22 images of real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, some of it sadomasochistic.”
Either way, there’s no way that Balenciaga’s creative team was unaware of the document being clearly legible in their photo. In any product shoot, there is intentionality to the inclusion and placement of each and every visible element. That leaves us to wonder why they made this choice.
Gabriele Galimberti, the Italian photographer credited for the shoot, has also faced scrutiny for normalizing the sexualization of children under the guise of pushing artistic boundaries. Galimberti has yet to publicly respond to the backlash.
His shoot for Balenciaga was intended as an iteration of his ongoing project “Toy Stories,” which features children from across the globe showing off their toy collections. However, this shoot focused on paid, unnamed models to advertise an impersonal brand’s lifestyle wares. There is no artistic integrity in juxtaposing toddlers with sexual paraphilias for shock value.
Following Elon Musk’s takeover at Twitter, reports have surfaced of a major crackdown on the spread of child exploitation materials on the platform. The method for reporting such abuse has been streamlined, and prominent hashtags used to spread CP have been ostensibly cleared. Thousands of recently sacked Twitter employees proved useless in stamping out these abuses.
Balenciaga has left Twitter, leading many to think they are fleeing accountability. When a big tech platform finally enforces their rules against the exploitation of children (even under the guise of haute couture), pay close attention to the brands or individuals who make haste toward the exit.
