Balenciaga apologises for bondage bear advert involving child

How can they possibly bring charges? They signed off on it.

It's disgusting. But I'm shocked at the number of times I've seen this advert posted without concealing the child's face on forums; surely if you want to raise awareness and get people speaking up against it, the first thing you do it protect the child's identity by hiding their face

Are we supposed to be pleased that they are bringing charges ?

That somehow they are now absolved of any responsibility despite the fact that numerous people in their staff would have signed off on this along the way. Not to mention the many people who must have been present whilst the photos were being taken including the parents of the child.

Why are they acting like the victims. The only victim here is the child.

Parents, and many of those who signed off, won't be aware of the docs or the black eye references.

Parents will have thought 'punk bear'.

I found the images unsettling but wasn't sure why. I'd have accepted 'edgy', I think.

People with more awareness on here have spelled out the problem and challenged the brand thank goodness.

I had seen the pics, but hadn’t heard about the court doc.
Disgusting.
But surely balenciaga signed off on it?
I don’t understand how it’s not ultimately their fault/down to them?

Yes, it's not just to shock, is it? Looks like a (not very) secret political message, to normalise child abuse or titillate other pedophiles.

The inclusion of the court docs in the photo is extremely disturbing.

This wasn't the only example, but I do remember there being almost a wave of racist ads or trends or campaigns (not sure of the fashion term) a few years ago. All accompanied by widespread outrage. This is one of them but it's just one:

www.thesun.co.uk/news/8372460/gucci-blackface-twitter-racist-sweater/

Is the fashion industry now going to decide that BDSM and court cases about child sexual abuse are fashion? Or - worse(??) - are they doing it to get publicity? The racist ads got a lot of publicity.

I agree Tucker shouldn't say "kiddie porn". I thought that a crime in the US was "child pornography" (may not now be or may still be??) so that may be where that term comes from. For clarity, I wouldn't use the terms he does, I just wonder if it's somehow come from their laws.

Her parents would have been on set when these pictures were taking.

How shocking they didn't put a stop to it at the time.

This. The investigation needs to happen. Are paedophiles at the bottom of this? If so, what are their names? How many people were complicit?

It's so blatant.

I hadn't seen or heard about this. That's so distressing.

Stomach churning

My dh insists that this so called fashion brand or whatever the hell it is (I refuse to look it up and click on anything of theirs) is a mad social experiment to see what bloody awful tat rich people will buy just because it has that name on it.

It's really upsetting that the only outlets reporting on this are the likes of Fox News and Tucker Carlson. And that the rhetoric is around 'sexulalising children'.

This is not 'sexualising children', these are images of child abuse. Children taking part in sexually provocative or explicit imagery is child abuse.

Tucker Carlson used the expression "kiddie porn". There's no such thing. There is only child abuse and rape. I hate that the right are taking control of this narrative and using language that seeks to lessen or diminish the reality of it. Where's Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah

If the adverts weren’t included on the thread there would be posters saying it didn’t happen and if it did it wasn’t that bad.

Yep, I came to add this.

One of the images in the set had a document on a table or the floor, can't remember exactly now. Some people on Twitter looked up the text of the document, and found that it was a document as described above.

They knew full well what they were doing; they included that document to make a mockery of it as well.

I have not heard of this before nor of the brand. It is helpful info for me as will avoid it now. But yes, the child’s face should be blurred (though I wouldn’t have thought of it on my own) - can you take it down and upload a blurred version? - as I think a picture is worth a thousand words here - I v quickly realised how disturbing this is.

Report your original post and tell hq you want to blur out the child's face.

Wow, just looked this up on twitter. The photos are horrific enough but then there are documents about a US court case about free speech and child sexual abuse images.

I hope those who created /signed off on this get properly investigated by the police.

I had no idea this happened so if you mentioned it I wouldn’t know what you meant.

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

Tucker Carlson covered this and asked why no one else is (in America at least)

twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1595229989686972416?s=46&t=Lqp64pXiwVo5Pt0fH6AwrQ

I agree it's appalling and hardly likely to be one person gone rogue. Come on! That's barely credible.

Yes, obscure the child's face but we need to see how far this dangerous stuff is reaching.

You're right to have included the offending images, OP, and thank you for doing so. We meed to know what we're talking about.