Just What Was Demna Thinking?
Words Phadria Prendergast
If there ever was a situation illustrating what crossing the line of creativity looks like, this would be it.
Balenciaga’s recent holiday campaign featured photographs of two young girls holding teddy bears which appeared to be dressed in BDSM clothing, whilst also surrounded by an assortment of other bondage related accessories. Another campaign image for its SS23 collection, featured copies of a US Supreme Court judgement (United States v. Williams) on child pornography, as a prop underneath a bag from the brand’s collaboration with Adidas.
The Parisian fashion house issued a statement a day later apologising — as you do when you accidentally feature some innocent minors in your sexualised campaign, not to mention also using what appears to be child pornography documents as props…….
And if all else fails, blame the team you hired.
Balenciaga, then proceeded to shift the blame by filing a lofty $25M Summons against the production company North Six and the campaign’s set designer Nicholas Des Jardins, who they claim were responsible for creating the set and including “unapproved items.”
Now, I won’t begin to try and understand the “creative thought” that would have taken Balenciaga and ultimately Demna Gvasalia to the stage of not only shooting TWO campaigns of this manner, but also publishing them, because it’s deeply disturbing, but I also find it incredibly hard to believe that a company with 103 years under its belt, several systems and countless ranks of employees, had no hands in the final approval of the images that made its way onto Balenciaga’s global platform.
And let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and say they had no idea that the very papers they were using as props in their multi-million-dollar campaign, questioned whether laws against the promotion of child pornography limited the First Amendment. Let’s say the production company used their own initiative for this particular ‘prop,’ the question would now be, what was the brief they were given to think it was OK to do so?
And if we forget entirely about that campaign altogether and focus solely on the earlier campaign which featured two young girls, holding teddy bears in bondage gear surrounded by other questionable accessories, that brings with it a whole different level of questions.
More than anything, Balenciaga’s blame-game move was cowardly and to be frank, juvenile for a brand that is over a century old.
Almost two weeks after the inevitable media outrage began, creative director Demna Gvasalia finally broke his silence via an Instagram post on his personal page where he apologised for his “wrong artistic choice of concept.”
I believe Lindsay Peoples’ said it best when she stated that fashion has long had the bad habit of making surface-level changes, and at this point, I think we all know how it goes, especially after the necessary apologies are made and statements are issued.
For the most part, the outage is much like that of an empty barrel, because after all the comments and tweets (and if you’re committed enough, blog posts), you won’t dispose of that Balenciaga Hourglass bag and you’re still going to like whatever campaign they feed you next.
First we’re outraged, then time passes and most of us forget, but side note: Dolce, yes we loved the Kim Kardashian campaign, but we absolutely haven't forgotten your pattern of racism, homophobia, and misogyny.
Right now, as the face of Balenciaga, Demna was likely licking his wounds, with his nearest and dearest consoling him with words like “it will all blow over” and “it just takes a bit of time.’
And whilst I believe cancel culture is a load of bollocks, because people make mistakes (yes, even global brands), and I’m an advocate for 10th, 11th and 20th chances, I do however believe that as creative director and ultimately the mastermind behind the campaign, Demna must take full responsibility for this campaign and it mustn’t only be a few carefully written words on Instagram for the masses.
Balenciaga have now dropped the lawsuit via a statement posted on Instagram where the brand stated: “Balenciaga has decided not to pursue litigation,” and of course, they’ve thrown some money at the issue also stating, “we have set aside a significant fund for grants to organisations so that we can help make a difference in protecting children.”