Balenciaga apologises for bondage bear advert involving child

I mean, a more obvious idea would be to stage the photos with adults, as if to imply the Balenciaga shite is grown-up toys - that would be creepy enough. But to use children??!!

The Balenciaga campaign then seems a deliberate subversion or perversion of the style of those photos, with toys replaced by leads, wine glasses, bondage teddies etc. It is not edgy, it's just wrong.

He also tweeted this. He's since deleted his Twitter account as has Balenciaga and they've pretty much deleted everything on their Instagram

Not sure if it's been mentioned here already, but by far the most disturbing one for me was the one with the child on the sofa with empty wine glasses on the table utterly vile. I cannot understand how anyone at Balenciaga can pretend they didn't know what they were doing with these photographs

There are leads and wine glasses on the tables in front of the little girls.

The photographer did a project with children with all their toys laid out around them and he's used the same style for this shoot: www.thisiscolossal.com/2018/06/toy-stories-gabriele-galimberti/
(I find these photos disturbing - you may not)

Just seen the Father Christmas.

There really is no end to this is there?

As I understand it, for hiding the document about child abuse on the table

But it was their job to check that. If the internet 'found' it, why was it beyond the skills of the marketing team employed for the purpose?

Bullshit they are bringing charges against 'the creative' - for what? Fulfilling their brief to a high enough standard that the brand decided to sign off the pictures and put them into the world?

As I understand it, for hiding the document about child abuse on the table. The document removed all plausible deniability. Presumably if that hadn’t been there, they would not have taken the campaign down; they would have accused anyone who objected to it of being prudish, and revelled in how edgy they are.

I agree, and the apology has given then extra value for money being a featured story in places they would not have got coverage.
It was a cynical ploy to use sexualsing a few child models for money, like they were disposable.

And over in NZ, not even Father Christmas is spared:

twitter.com/standingforxx/status/1595350983927861250?s=46&t=_7cSYBiZLXt81w00-XxPlg

Some people are desperate to link concerns about paedophilia with right wing groups. Can't think why they'd be so keen to cover up child abuse

Why are they suing their content creator? Their CMO would have signed off on it. That's their job.

Jesus Christ, this is just bizarre. The fashion industry is not content with objectifying adults (mostly women), being one of the worst global polluters and abusing human rights on an enormous scale in its production chains, now they're doing this??!

And this site, apparently a leading fashion brand and blog, believes the questioning of Balenciaga's campaign is an 'absurd conspiracy theory':

www.highsnobiety.com/p/balenciaga-child-ad-conspiracy-theory/

I saw this on Twitter the other day and couldn't quite believe my eyes. Revolting!
I'd agree with the poster who said that this was no accident. A long line of people would have been involved and you'd hope that somewhere along the line,at least one person might have raised concerns?

Both my Dd's were models,from 3 months old. Mainly fitting models for a well known fashion company and I remember 6 month old Dd1 being presented with a bikini to see how it fitted.I told the staff that I thought that bikinis for 6 month old babies ( with a triangle/ bra style top) were inappropriate and that no way would I buy one.

Anyway, whenever we were offered photographic bookings,the agent described what the job was for and what they'd be doing. I was offered an ad campaign for the NSPCC and the agent told me to consider the fact that there were some people who would see Dd1 in the advert and not be able to comprehend that she wasn't being neglected/ abused in real life and that she was just a model. I turned that job down.So, going from my experience, EVERYONE apart from that child,would have had a choice to stand up and say "no". And no one did. Poor poor child.

It’s gross but also why are they taking legal action against the creator - they would have signed it off?

This is a very cheap thing for them to say simply to signal that they're pretending to be the wronged party in some way and they're going to act firmly. I expect there'll be no legal action but they'll keep up the pretence it's going to happen until the story has moved out of the mainstream.

it's the expressions on the children's faces that will stay with me. I hope someone is checking that they are safe and being well cared for.

100%

Bullshit that they weren't aware. They can fuck all the way off to fuck with their bondage teddies, forever.

Brooke Shields was 15 when she modelled for Calvin Klein with the tag line “you know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing”.

Calvin Klein still successful.

I don't think it's incompatible to say that the person who created this imagery has a sexual interest in children, and that this industry has always attracted men with such interests. The TQ+ brigade has just made it easier for them to be more open about it, because the public has been softened up by the normalisation of stuff like Desmond is Amazing and Pride marches with bondage furries.

One of the most unsettling things about those photos is that the child models look scared and unhappy.

Yes. The models don’t look happy at all. Very strained and smiling because they were told too.

It reminds me of the boy in the John Lewis ad. He looked very confused at the end of the ad when you looked at screen grabs. That was child trying to act in the way the creator wanted but who didn’t really understand.

The inclusion of the document proves that point to me.

This. Whilst I can see the argument for obscuring the child's face - and hopefully MNHQ could help with that - this ad was distributed widely by a high profile brand and I hardly think a site known predominantly to be used by women who care about safeguarding children is going to make a huge amount of difference. That ad will have already been downloaded by anyone who wanted to.

Heads need to roll.

Yes and Kate Moss has spoken about how uncomfortable she felt.

Do you remember the Kate Moss nudes for Calvin Klein? She looked like a child, and was still a child.