Balenciaga’s creative director apologizes after campaign accused of sexualizing children

More than two weeks after the outcry over Balenciaga’s advertising campaign deemed child pornography, the fashion house’s creative director, Georgian Demna Gvasalia (now called Demna), has apologized. Master in provocation and author of disturbing parades carrying societal messages, Demna has been in the hot seat since this campaign featuring children and sexually connoted accessories.

“I want to personally apologize for the poor artistic choice (…) and I assume my responsibility”, he wrote, Friday, December 2, on Instagram. “If I have sometimes wanted to provoke through my work, I never intended to do so with a subject as horrible as child abuse, which I condemn”he continues.

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On some images, removed more than a week ago, we could see a child, standing on a sofa, or on a bed which holds like a comforter a bag in the shape of a teddy bear, strapped with black belts inspired by the BDSM, or bondage, a sadomasochistic sexual practice. Muse of Balenciaga, American social media star Kim Kardashian said she wants “reevaluate” his relationship with the luxury brand after this campaign.

The brand withdraws its complaint

On social networks, Internet users have also noted that, in another photo, a bag resulting from a collaboration with Adidas is placed in an office setting, on documents where excerpts from a decision of the Supreme Court are printed. American on child pornography.

While taking “full responsibility for the lack of monitoring and control”Balenciaga said earlier this week that it had “complained” for “the inclusion of these non-validated documents, the result of irresponsible negligence”. The general manager of the house, Cédric Charbit, finally announced that the brand “decided not to take legal action”in a statement posted Friday evening on Instagram, where he also apologizes ” personally “.

According to New York Post, the complaint, filed in the New York courts, was directed against the production house North Six and the decorator Nicholas Des Jardins and claimed 25 million dollars in damages.

For Balenciaga, this controversy comes at a bad time, because the brand had already had to cut ties in October with rapper Kanye West after his anti-Semitic excesses. Three weeks earlier, he had opened the Balenciaga fashion show in Paris.

The World with AFP


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