The Bondage Bears Christmas campaign
The scandal erupted when Balenciaga released its 2022 Christmas ad campaign, which featured children posing with its stuffed animal bag. The bags look like teddy bears and are dressed in BDSM gear.
During the photo shoot, the kids also appeared surrounded by empty wine and champagne glasses.
The decidedly adult themes immediately concerned many, who wondered why children had ever been used.
Balenciaga initially ignored the scandal and seemingly let the photographer involved, Gabriele Galimberti, take over the heat.
He released a statement saying he had no control over the content of the shoot, and eventually Balenciaga released a statement of his own agreeing with him and taking responsibility for the campaign.
Now it has been pulled from the internet.
The Hidden Child Porn Documents
After the BDSM Bears fiasco, observant critics began to scrutinize the rest of Balenciaga’s campaigns.
They soon discovered that in the background of an image from the Spring ’23 campaign was an expression of a Supreme Court ruling on whether or not child pornography on the Internet can legally be considered free speech.
On the back cover of the bear scandal, many critics said it hinted at a disturbing pattern within Balenciaga.
Balenciaga quickly blamed North Six, a production company that helped organize the shoot, for recording these documents.
They claimed that they had entrusted all of the props from the photo shoot to North Six and that their team had been assured that anything in it was fake.
The disturbing book by an artist whose work depicts naked, castrated infants
Balenciaga is yet to answer for shooting a book by Michael Borremans in the background of two of the images from the Spring ’23 campaign.
Borremans is a Belgian painter whose work includes a disturbing 2017 series entitled Fire From The Sun.
It shows naked, partially castrated toddlers playing in a group and sometimes alone.
The brand’s lawyers have yet to deal with questions from about how the book ended up at the photoshoot.
In this image from Balenciaga’s discarded Spring ’23 campaign, Isabelle Huppert sits in front of a stack of books, including one celebrating Michael Borremans, a Belgian painter whose work is known to depict castrated infants
Borremans’ other work includes his 2017 series Fire From The Sun, which features castrated toddlers and babies holding what appear to be severed limbs as they play naked in a large group