Balenciaga management personally apologizes for advertising with children’s toys in BDSM paraphernalia

Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia and fashion house chief executive Cedric Charby have apologized for an ad featuring children holding BDSM toys. After the scandal around this advertising campaign, model Kim Kardashian said she would reconsider her relationship with the brand.

“I want to personally apologize for the wrong artistic choice of concept for shooting with children and say that I take responsibility for this. It was unacceptable to involve children in the demonstration of items that have nothing to do with them, ”wrote the brand’s creative director Demna Gvasalia on Instagram (the social network is owned by Meta, which is recognized as extremist in Russia and banned).

In November, the house of Balenciaga published an advertisement for a gift collection of goods with children. In promotional photos, children are holding toys in BDSM costumes. In addition, documents with the text of a 2008 Supreme Court ruling on child pornography were found in one of the photos of the advertising campaign with actress Isabelle Huppert. After the publication of the photos, the fashion house was accused of sexualizing children in this advertisement. Since then, Balenciaga has removed the ad photos from all platforms.

Last week, fashion house Balenciaga released a statement of apology and announced the launch of an internal investigation into the advertising campaigns. The statement said that the child pornography documents were third party props and that the house filed a complaint about the inclusion of “unapproved documents”. “I want to personally once again offer my sincere apologies for the offense caused and take responsibility,” said Cedric Charby, CEO of the brand.

Anastasia Larina