Balenciaga scandal - Brand issues statement, drops lawsuit as creative director responds to backlash

In a comment piece, The Independent’s Olivia Petter asks if the fashion industry will ever learn from this controversy.

“Beyond the obvious criticism, there’s something deeper at play here that helps raise further questions around accountability and what actually drives consumer spending.”

“Because, fundamentally, that’s the intention of these campaigns: to sell us things. Once you take away all of the noise and criticism, major brands almost always succeed in continuing to sell their products, backlash be damned.”

“If the fashion industry keeps neglecting to learn from their mistakes, at what point do they stop being mistakes entirely?”

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A street artist was spotted leaving graffiti on a Balenciaga store window in London amid the brand’s recent ad scandal.

Joe Bloggs, known by his artist name as The Average Man, placed a vinyl sticker with the words “paedophilia” on the store’s glass display window at its New Bond street location in central London.

The words appeared three times in black below two back-to-back facing letter “Ps”.

Bloggs explained that the graffiti was in response to Balenciaga’s recent campaign controversy, in which the luxury fashion house published two ads involving children.

A TikToker captured Bloggs defacing the Balenciaga store window in a video captioned: “POV: you’re walking through Central London enjoying the lights and see Balenciaga getting cancelled”.

Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia had praised the fashion brand just one month before its recent scandal.

“The fact that today I have the fashion elite say hello to me, they come to my shows, they consider me finally, it’s somehow a victory, probably,” he said.

On 2 December, the designer issued a statement about the two controversial Balenciaga ads, in which child models posed with teddy bears dressed in bondage gear and a Supreme Court document on child pornography was visible.

“I want to personally apologise for the wrong artistic choice of concept for the gifting campaign with kids and I take my responsibility,” he wrote on Instagram. “It was inappropriate to have kids promote objects that had nothing to do with them.”

Balenciaga issued a new statement about the backlash on 2 December.

The latest statement describes actions Balenciaga will be taking “to learn from our mistakes as an organisation.”

These actions include “new control instances,” such as nominating an image board responsible for evaluating the nature of its content, reorganising the brand’s image department, and dropping its $25m lawsuit against production company North Six.

Balenciaga said it has also “set aside a significant fund for grants to organisations so that we can help make a difference in protecting children”.

This is the brand’s third statement since sparking backlash over two recent ad campaigns involving children.

Cédric Charbit, Balenciaga’s president and CEO, apologised for the “offense” that the brand’s controversial ad campaigns caused in a new Instagram statement.

“I want to personally reiterate my sincere apologies for the offense caused and take my responsibility,” he wrote.

“At Balenciaga, we stand together for children safety and do not tolerate any kind of violence and hatred message.”

Balenciaga launches “image board” amid the brand’s recent ad scandal.

“Our current process for content validation has failed, and we recognise the need to do better,” the brand said in a new Instagram statement. “On the internal side, we nominate with immediate effect an image board responsible for evaulating the nature of our content from concept to final assets, including legal, sustainability and diversity expertise.”

“On the external side, we have appointed a best-in-class agency to asses and evaluate our content.”

Balenciaga has dropped its lawsuit against the production company in charge of its spring 2023 campaign, in which documents from a Supreme Court case on child pornography were used as props.

In a new statement, the brand said it “has decided not to pursue litigation” against production company North Six Inc, and its agent, Nicholas Des Jardins.

On 25 November, Balenciaga filed a $25m lawsuit accusing the company of engaging in “inexplicable acts and omissions” that were “malevolent or, at the very least, extraordinarily reckless.”

Balenciaga was suing Des Jardins and North Six to “seek redress for extensive damages [they] caused in connection with an advertising campaign Balenciaga hired them to produce.”

The fashion label claimed the defendants “included” excerpts from the 2008 Supreme Court decision United States v Williams – which ruled on the constitutionality of prohibiting the pandering of child pornography – without its knowledge or authorisation.

This is the third statement Balenciaga has issued since the backlash.

On 22 November, the brand apologised for including children in a photoshoot for its teddy bear bondage bags. “We sincerely apologise for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused,” the first statement read. “Our plush bear bags should not have been featured with children in this campaign. We have immediately removed the campaign from all platforms.”

Balenciaga also apologised for including the Supreme Court documents involving child pornography in the ad campaign.

“We apologise for displaying unsettling documents in our campaign,” the company said. “We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our Spring ‘23 campaign photoshoot.”

In a second statement posted on 28 November, Balenciaga “strongly condemned” child abuse and “took responsibility” for the two ad campaigns.

Celebrities have ditched Balenciaga amid a recent ad scandal involving children.

Amid the backlash, Brittany Aldean – Jason Aldean’s wife – shared a photo of herself throwing out her Balenciaga bags.

“It’s trash day @Balenciaga,” Aldean captioned the photo.

The Bachelor stars Arie Luyendyk Jr and wife Lauren Burnham posted a video on Instagram burning their Balenciaga items with the caption, “Bye Balenciaga”.

Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian revealed she is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga, “basing it off their willingness to accept accountability for something that should have never happened to begin with – and the actions I am expecting to see them take to protect children”.

Kanye West announced his support for Balenciaga on Twitter yesterday, before being banned from the platform.

In a series of controversial tweets, the rapper wrote: “I stand by Balenciaga and denounce all witch hunts and I cancel cancel culture. Jesus is King. Ending trafficking doesn’t start or end with a fashion campaign for Christ Sake”.

In a second tweet, he added: “Never turn our backs Demna [Balenciaga’s creative director] and the Balenciaga family for life. Cancel cancel culture, Jesus please heal.”

West was later suspended for violating the platform’s policy against violence after posted a design of a swastika inside the Star of David.

His support comes after Balenciaga cut all ties with Ye in November after the Yeezy designer made several antisemitic remarks.