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Balenciaga releases new statement addressing controversial ads

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Balenciaga has issued a new statement “strongly condemning” child abuse while addressing the fallout over its controversial ad campaigns involving children.

On Monday, Balenciaga shared a new statement to Instagram, where the luxury fashion house said it “would like to address the controversies surrounding our recent ad campaigns”.

In the post, the designer brand wrote: “We strongly condemn child abuse; it was never our intent to include it in our narrative.

“The two separate ad campaigns in question reflect a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility.”

Balenciaga has faced widespread backlash over two recent ad campaigns involving children. One of the ads, the designer’s gift collection campaign, featured children posing with the brand’s teddy bear purses, which critics pointed out appear to be wearing BDSM and bondage-inspired accessories. The second ad under scrutiny is Balenciaga’s Spring 2023 campaign, for its use of a printout of a Supreme Court decision on child pornography.

In the new statement, Balenciaga proceeded to address the issues with each specific campaign, with the designer noting that its “plush bear bags and the gift collection should not have been featured with children”.

“This was a wrong choice by Balenciaga, combined with our failure in assessing and validating images. The responsibility for this lies with Balenciaga alone,” the company writes.

As for the second campaign, Balenciaga said the set was “meant to replicate a business office environment”. The backdrop, which was used to promote the brand’s collaboration with Adidas, featured purses displayed atop the Supreme Court ruling.

According to Balenciaga, “all the items included in this shooting were provided by third parties that confirmed in writing that these props were fake office documents”.

“They turned out to be real legal papers most likely coming from the filming of a television drama,” Balenciaga continued. “The inclusion of these unapproved documents was the result of reckless negligence for which Balenciaga has filed a complaint.”

On 25 November, Balenciaga filed a lawsuit against production company North Six Inc – and its agent, Nicholas Des Jardins for engaging in “inexplicable acts and omissions” that were “malevolent or, at the very least, extraordinarily reckless”.

Balenciaga is seeking $25m in monetary damages.

While the brand is suing the production company over the campaign, Balenciaga noted in the statement that it takes “full accountability for our lack of oversight and control of the documents in the background”.

“We could have done things differently,” the brand acknowledged.

In the statement, Balenciaga then said that amid ongoing internal and external investigations into the campaigns, the brand would be taking additonal actions to ensure similar issues do not occur in the future.

According to Balenciaga, these actions include “closely revising our organisation and collective ways of working” and “reinforcing the structures around our creative processes and validation steps”.

“We want to ensure that new controls mark a pivot and will prevent this from happening again,” the company continued.

Balenciaga also said, going forward, it will be working with organisations that “specialise in child protection” and aim to end “child abuse and exploitation”.

“We want to learn from our mistakes and identify ways we can contribute,” the luxury brand concluded. “Balenciaga reiterates its sincere apologies for the offense we have caused and extends its apologies to talents and partners.”

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