Balenciaga recently advertised their new "holiday ad campaign," where they used children in a "not-usual-child" atmosphere while holding the bondage teddy bears.
Before we jump into the apology of Balenciaga and the photographer. We should take a minute to think, who on earth had an idea that this would work? On top of that, it was just not only one person who worked behind this campaign. There was the whole team, and no one of these people did not think even for a second: "Hey I think this is not the best idea."
Honestly, this is the big question we should ask. If one person makes a mistake or comes up with a "Not so good idea," we can let it go. But behind this AD campaign, there was more than just one person. Although after all of the attention and people asking to stop buying Balenciaga products, the Balenciaga team tends to blame and "not know "exactly who, what and how did it all happen...
Reasons why this ad campaign is not acceptable.
First, you do not need to think twice if you look at these photos. These photos are not what a normal 3-5-year-old would normally pose for. So starting from this point, the whole environment - wine glasses, teddy bears without eyes and fishnet tops, etc. These items that were placed around children are definitely normal "play" items for a 5-year-old.
Many of us can argue it is for artistic purposes and has no direct link to it. All right, the artistic purpose is always hard to find a truth in it as art is art...
But then they launched another set of pictures where they clearly had original court documents that shared about: "Supreme Court's 2008 decision in U.S. v. Williams. The case examined whether laws banning the "pandering" — promoting — of child pornography curtailed First Amendment freedom of speech rights. "
What did Balenciaga Team Say?
2 Days ago Balenciaga Team announced this on their Instagram page.
As you can read from their statement that it was a series of grievous errors, they take responsibility for it. Although the question remains when they state that they had another photo session in spring, and these ideas are separate. It`s very Odd that two sets of campaigns are coming out with the same "background idea".
And they claim that they were not linked in one way or another. So if they are not linked in one way or another, why there were no papers that could state: "How to make lemonade" for example? It could have been anything... Was it bad luck?
If you are looking at one of the designers that worked with them on this campaign Lotta Volkova whose Instagram is filled with "artistic" pictures that feature children in a very odd manner.
Then again, it is a question, was it really an error, or is there something we all should be very concerned about it?
If a normal person posts pictures like this of their child at home on social media, I believe they would face problems with child service authorities the next day.
The question remains here: do you really believe it was just an error, as their statements say, or did the team know exactly what they were doing and thought this was all right?
Because at the end of the day someone clicked PUBLISH these images.
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