The fashion label Balenciaga has come under fire for a photo session that featured young models posing with teddy bears with fetishistic themes.
The pictures, which were part of a campaign to advertise its Objects line, drew a lot of criticism.
Kim Kardashian, a brand ambassador, came under heat as a result and responded with a statement.
Balenciaga has withdrawn the pictures and announced that it is taking legal action regarding one photo shoot.
Balenciaga is regarded as one of the
“world’s hottest brands” by some and its luxury goods are a favourite of A-listers and influencers.
But photos from two of its latest campaigns caused people to get angry.
The first was a series of images showing child models posing with the company’s plush bear bags.
These teddy bear-inspired accessories look like soft toys – but appear to be wearing leather harnesses and other items associated with bondage fetishes.
Two of the pictures showed young children hugging the backpacks.
The photoshoot was for Balenciaga’s latest Objects range – which includes high-end pet items
Critics then locked on to a second image from an earlier, separate, campaign promoting the brand’s collaboration with Adidas.
One of the pictures showed a handbag sitting on top of some documents.
When people zoomed in on the text it revealed the papers were from a US Supreme Court ruling related to indecent images of children.
It’s reported that, Balenciaga started posting the images to its social media feeds on 16 November.
They started to go viral, especially in the US among users who object to what they see as “over-sexualising” young children.
As criticism built, a sarcastic tweet from YouTuber June Nicole Lapine gained a lot of traction and Balenciaga deleted all the images a short time later.
After this, some right-wing US media channels ran with the story, and accused the fashion house of “endorsing child pornography”.
The accusation was fuelled by the campaign for its Adidas collaboration featuring the case notes referring to “virtual child porn
Balenciaga posted an apology to its 14 million Instagram followers and said its plush bear bags “should not have been featured with children”.
It said it had removed the items from sale and deleted the images from all web platforms.
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