You wonder if consumers destroying Balenciaga products on TikTok or urging on multiple posts on social media to boycott the brand, finally convinced the fashion house's creative director Demna Gvasalia to apologise about the fashion house's recent disturbing campaign.
Today Gvasalia stated on his personal Instagram account: "I want to personally apologize for the wrong artistic choice of concept for the gifting campaign with the kids and I take my responsibility. It was inappropriate to have kids promote objects that have nothing to do with them."
Gvasalia was referring to the campaign for Balenciaga's Gift Collection that featured six children, some holding BDSM style teddy bear bags from the fashion house's S/S 23 collection. Deemed inappropriate, the images were widely condemned on the Internet.
"As much as I would sometimes like to provoke a thought through my work, I would NEVER have an intention to do that with such an awful subject as child abuse that I condemn. Period," the designer continued, adding "I need to learn from this, listen and engage with child protection organizations to know how I can contribute and help on this terrible subject."
Gvasalia closed the message highlighting that Balenciaga "has guaranteed that adequate measures will be taken not only to avoid similar mistakes in the future but also to take accountability in protecting child welfare."
While he took responsibility for the images (albeit several days after the controversy erupted) which was the right thing to do considering that clients have the last word on a campaign, so, at some point he must have approved it, Gvasalia didn't mention the second campaign that also caused another firestorm.
Shot in a Manhattan skyscraper office setting, the campaign featured a Balenciaga/Adidas bag on some legal documents. A blown-up image revealed that the documents referred to the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision, "United States v. Williams," which upheld a federal child pornography law finding it was not in violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
According to the fashion house, the documents were real legal papers most likely coming from the filming of a television drama. As consumers felt there was a pattern pointing at child pornography and sexual references, the situation span into more controversy and, a week ago, Balenciaga filed a $25 million lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against the independent production company that created this photoshoot, North Six Inc., as well as set designer Nicholas Des Jardins and his eponymous brand. But, in an Instagram story posted today, Balenciaga President and CEO Cédric Charbit, announced the company will not pursue litigation, and apologised for the offense caused, taking responsibility.
In the same Instagram story, Charbit announced Balenciaga has now introduced some internal and external changes with the election of an image board responsible for evaluating the nature of the brand's content from concept to final assets, and an agency to assess and evaluate the fashion house's contents.
Balenciaga should have apologised and taken the blame and responsibility sooner (after all, as stated in a previous post about the case, a campaign is never released without the approval of the client, so why not taking responsibility immediately instead of letting days pass, making things even worse?). The two advertising campaigns and the time it took to get an apology revealed an internal fragility at the fashion house, not helped by its connections with other controversial figures à la Kanye West.
In October, the fashion house invited Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to open Balenciaga's show. Not long after it, Balenciaga had to cut ties with the artist as he showed antisemitic rhetoric on social media. Today, before getting banned on Twitter (for the first time since Elon Musk bought it) for sharing an image of a swastika inside a Star of David, Ye wrote that he stood by Gvasalia and Balenciaga through the scandal.
Legally speaking, the fact that Balenciaga decided not to pursue litigation after filing a $25 million lawsuit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against the independent production company that created the office photoshoot, is important. The decision avoided indeed to create a precedent, with a powerful fashion house getting away with its mistakes and blaming somebody else.
It may take time, though, for the brand to regain the trust of its fashion base and its credibility: after the controversies about the adverts, the fashion house will not attend the Fashion Awards in London on Monday. Demna Gvasalia was originally a candidate for Designer of the Year, alongside others including Miuccia Prada and Pierpaolo Piccioli for Valentino, but the British Fashion Council confirmed that his name is no longer on the list for the award.
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