What do y'all think about the Balenciaga SS23 & Adidas collab "teddy" controversy?

[Swanky]

Bears repeating!

We'd like to leave this thread open, but political conspiracy theories, among other comments need to stop. Discuss the topic only please, let's keep the discussion open and all responses to others need to remain respectful.

Also, let’s stick closely to topic, it really helps preventing tangents and drama.

 

[jellyv]

Riiight?!?! If it was for the sake of art then Balenciaga and Kering would admit they knew it and would elaborate further that's it's art. RIIIGHT?!?!

I realize this is rhetorical but: Clearly their strategy is not to defend it but to apologize and attempt distancing, as discussed previously. We may recognize this as PR necessity rather than remorse, but that's how they're rolling.

 

[chloehandbags]

I have decided that this is my last post on this thread and I need not comment much further.

I am a contemporary artist and fashion designer and I do like the driving concept behind Balenciaga's brilliant dissection of American culture (at least a fringe element) through the ad. It is pretty postmodern and works well as an anti-ad ad.

Unfortunately, the ad which is directed more at an European audience who understands irony and sociopolitical commentary failed terribly with an American audience. We just don't have any understanding of subtle satire/subversion/dark humor; but in case, at this point, I feel that I am going to be speaking to deaf ears and I will remain to support Demna as much as I can.

They have nothing to apologize at this point. In any case, Balenciaga should think hard and just makes ads specifically for Americans and then ads for the rest of the world. That will solve the problem. (Look at the news coverage for this flap up; we aren't getting much out of American news coverage).

No it won't.

I'm British and I am also horrified by this.

 

[DILF]

We stopped by a *very high end* shopping center late last night to run some holiday errands. The center has extended holiday hours and opens until 11 p.m. this time of year. In the corridor where all the LVMH & Kering fashion and jewellery boutiques were located (C, D, G, LV, etc.), all boutiques were open late until 11 EXCEPT B, whose doors were closed. We thought this had to do with the backlash they are facing.

 

[trippinonsunshine]

I heard about the campaign and thus did not want to observe the pictures at length or give it much thought. What bothered me more was that the ad quoted the Supreme Court case U.S.v. Williams. In short, the conservative justice Scalia wrote that virtual pornographic images of children are protected under the First Amendment if it does not “involve harms to children.” Of course, my hero, Ruth Badger Ginsberg strongly dissented.

So Balenciaga knew exactly what it was doing by printing these pictures and intentionally produced virtual pornographic images of children and reminded the American public that they were within their rights under the 1st AmendmenT.

View attachment 5664472

wow - we are really distorting this. Yeah Denma is a brilliant mastermind NOT

 

[mrceral]

This quote from Demna has really aged poorly.

“Sometimes people get offended by certain things . . . but there is a reason for those things when we do them. It’s never accidental,” he told the FT last month.

 

[Annawakes]

Well, Fashionphile won’t accept my pristine Bal bag I bought brand new back in July. I wonder if they are flooded with Bal quotes. Should’ve sold it two months ago when I was already over it.

 

[Bag peace]

wow - we are really distorting this. Yeah Denma is a brilliant mastermind NOT

I think it can be quite useful to hear different perspectives. Besides, it's not that much of a distortion. In my first post on this thread, I posed the same question (quoted below):

Or was it meant to be a social commentary of sorts? A mirror held up to showcase how society currently exploits children without consequence? Because, let's be honest, between celebrities and influencers posting their kids all over their social media, kids are being exploited for monetary gain all the time (and there is a darker side to those pictures being on social media sites as this campaign has shown us).

The reason I wondered that was because this was clearly a running theme- from the runway with the baby carriers, to the multiple photos for different releases/campaigns- the subject seemed to be the inspiration and theme for the collection.

Even if this was meant to be social commentary, it is a terrible concept and a horrifying end-product. I wish Bal had explained the vision and messaging, just so we can understand how we got to this point. Everything from the concept to the campaigns to the brand's response is horrifying.

ETA: I think it is important for us to consider how much children- who cannot consent and have no understanding of social media- are having their pictures published on social media platforms like instagram and youtube, for their parents' financial gain. I wish Bal had played on that angle, especially as Kim K- one of their ambassadors- is flippant about exploiting her children for fame/ attention/ money. It could have made for very insightful discussion.
However, the inclusion of bdsm elements, blood splattered teddy bears, and other inappropriate imagery takes the adverts, and the whole collection, to a very dark and ugly place. It's very difficult to imagine wth they were thinking.

 

[Shelby33]

Apparently (that's what I heard from a YT vid). I'm not linking that vid because I do not (want) to support the Chanel but I am supposing the content-creator got the info pretty easily from the Net.

However, from the DM (it doesn't say whether or not he works for BAL)

Father of child who posed in bondage-themed Balenciaga defends shoot

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the father said he was present at the shoot, which was 'an enjoyable day out' - and insisted the bizarre pictures had been taken 'totally out of context'.

www.dailymail.co.uk

From the article "...the parents of the children had been 'active participants' in the day-long shoot in Paris earlier this month."

"He said Galimberti was 'innocent' of any wrongdoing and revealed the models were all children of Balenciaga employees who were at the shoot and had approved the campaign."

Father of child who posed in bondage-themed Balenciaga defends shoot

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the father said he was present at the shoot, which was 'an enjoyable day out' - and insisted the bizarre pictures had been taken 'totally out of context'.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Does Balenciaga usually use their employee's
children for their campaigns? It seems unusual to me. Maybe no modeling agency wanted to be involved. Just speculating...

I think it can be quite useful to hear different perspectives. Besides, it's not that much of a distortion. In my first post on this thread, I posed the same question (quoted below):


The reason I wondered that was because this was clearly a running theme- from the runway with the baby carriers, to the multiple photos for different releases/campaigns- the subject seemed to be the inspiration and theme for the collection.

Even if this was meant to be social commentary, it is a terrible concept and a horrifying end-product. I wish Bal had explained the vision and messaging, just so we can understand how we got to this point. Everything from the concept to the campaigns to the brand's response is horrifying.

I think if it were meant to be a social commentary, they would have defended that.
Nobody from Balenciaga, to the photographers, has come out to say this. It was suggested by a forum member who surmises they should use different ads "for Americans".

 

[dangerouscurves]

I have decided that this is my last post on this thread and I need not comment much further.

I am a contemporary artist and fashion designer and I do like the driving concept behind Balenciaga's brilliant dissection of American culture (at least a fringe element) through the ad. It is pretty postmodern and works well as an anti-ad ad.

Unfortunately, the ad which is directed more at an European audience who understands irony and sociopolitical commentary failed terribly with an American audience. We just don't have any understanding of subtle satire/subversion/dark humor; but in case, at this point, I feel that I am going to be speaking to deaf ears and I will remain to support Demna as much as I can.

They have nothing to apologize at this point. In any case, Balenciaga should think hard and just makes ads specifically for Americans and then ads for the rest of the world. That will solve the problem. (Look at the news coverage for this flap up; we aren't getting much out of American news coverage).

Their most brilliant idea: "Supporting Balenciaga’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection, the ‘Garde-Robe’ campaign, which featured the likes of Bella Hadid and Nicole Kidman, saw Balenciaga opt for an “office” theme that displayed a host of legal documents across the set, with a page from a Supreme Court ruling of United States v. Williams being spotted. The document included several references to child pornography, with the case ultimately deeming the promotion of child pornography illegal and not protected under freedom of speech."

If there is any other fashion news which has such intellectual depth like Balenciaga, please tell me. Anyways I'm finally out of this room.

EDIT: In order to understand what the ad is really about, you must look at Bliss Foster's video about the ad regarding clones. It's a very cynical look at our world today where celebrity is all about cloning. Like Kim is a clone of Kanye, etc.



I will end this on a quote by Jean BAUDRILLARD about cloning and sexuality: "What, if not a death drive, would push sexed beings to regress to a form of reproduction prior to sexuation (besides, isn't it this form of scissiparity, this reproduction and proliferation through pure contiguity that is for us, in the depths of our imaginary, death and the death drive - what denies sexuality and wants to annihilate it, sexuality being the carrier of life, that is to say of a critical and mortal form of reproduction?) and that, at the same time, would push them metaphysically to deny all alterity, all alteration of the Same in order to aim solely for the perpetuation of an identity, a transparency of the genetic inscription no longer even subject to the vicissitudes of procreation?"

SECOND POSTSCRIPT: Regarding the ruling, we have https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2008/06/what-were-they.html

Balenciaga ads tend to be very hypertextual and refer one to another. Basically the child ad is a commentary on that ruling shown in another ad. In any case, from the article we quote "The Court's ratification of a flat ban on child pornography had a relatively minimal impact on the First Amendment. Admittedly, the ruling did cause serious problems for some photographers, ranging from parents taking innocuous photos of their children to fine art photographers whose works included nude photos of children (among the more well-known examples are David Hamilton, Jock Sturges, and Sally Mann). But on the whole, it was relatively easy to draw a bright line between legal and illegal images, and law enforcement made substantial progress in fighting child pornography.

Most of those gains, however, have been wiped out by computers, the Internet, and digital cameras, all of which have made the production and distribution of child pornography vastly easier and far more difficult to combat. These new technologies have also blurred the previously bright line between legal and illegal images: many websites feature very young-looking but still adult models; some individuals use software to blend two or more legal images into composite child pornography; and others use animation software to create completely artificial (but increasingly realistic) child pornography images."

Demna is just brilliant. He understands the pulse of our digital age where children are being exploited. He is a refugee and knows that the current situation in the Ukraine is where we are seeing violence against children happen again and again. (https://thehill.com/policy/internat...n-have-been-raped-tortured-by-russian-forces/)

Once again, we tend to be complaining about an ad and Demna is pointing out that we are all armchair hypocrites for raising arms about child exploitation while ignoring where the real violence against children is happening.

If that's really the case, him being a Georgian refugee who are worried about children safety especially in a situation there in Eastern Europe right now, it should have been portrayed differently. Instead, he put children in BDSM themed photoshoot which could be interpreted a promotion of child abuse. I'm also interested to know if you're still gonna be posting what bag you'd like to have in your collection of bag you'd let go in 6 months from now.

 

[dangerouscurves]

1.) Advertising has caused quite a bit of trouble even in oh-so-enlightened artistic Europe.
2.) to my knowledge the ad was explicitly placed in the US, so it was for the US American market - we can assume that a company the size of Balenciaga knows its customers and takes cultural differences into account .
3) Exploiting children is indeed something that we humans with sense and reason do not find cool, worldwide and over time.
4) Europe in particular - yes, I understand, the Eurocentric view of things, which does not at least stand up to scrutiny - has not necessarily distinguished itself with "artistic freedom" in recent years and decades. I like to remind here for the German area of Böhmermann, Charlie Hebdo etc.. We were oh so shocked, but children in an obvious BDSM context are "art"? Come on.
5.)I'll never understand how anyone could think that a broad-based advertising campaign that costs vast sums of money was just put together that way. Even an ordinary Nestle pizza photo is planned down to the smallest detail - no advertising is " just hold a camera on it and snap a photo, see what comes around". Thus, this overlap in the Balenciaga Tape is certainly also not an "accident".

The argument that the advertising would cause an uproar in the U.S., but operates in Europe under "art" is only one thing: racism and sheer arrogance towards the U.S. Americans. It shows that we Europeans - once again - can only do one thing: point the finger at others and raise ourselves above them at. any. price. And be it a photo that has clearly, worldwide, caused shock and disgust.

Sometimes I am ashamed to be a European, because this arrogance is foreign to me.

This is foreign to you and also the rest of us living in Europe. We do have people topless on the beach and we do have nudist beaches everywhere but children's well-being still EU's one of top priorities. They have arrested so many people involved in child pornography INCLUDING SOME POLITICIANS here in Germany. That's a poor excuse to say this ads were made for Eirope. We're not that 'open-minded' or that pervert.

 

[Bag peace]

I think if it were meant to be a social commentary, they would have defended that.

Yes, that is what I had assumed they would do at the start of all this but, their responses have proven otherwise.

Instead, he put children in BDSM themed photoshoot which could be interpreted a promotion of child abuse.

Agreed, this is the thing that takes a controversial ad and pushes it off a cliff. The children should never have been put in a position where we can come to this kind of interpretation, imo.
(In fact, I had just added a similar thought to my last post above #581)

 

[ccbaggirl89]

"He said Galimberti was 'innocent' of any wrongdoing and revealed the models were all children of Balenciaga employees who were at the shoot and had approved the campaign."

Father of child who posed in bondage-themed Balenciaga defends shoot

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the father said he was present at the shoot, which was 'an enjoyable day out' - and insisted the bizarre pictures had been taken 'totally out of context'.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Does Balenciaga usually use their employee's
children for their campaigns? It seems unusual to me. Maybe no modeling agency wanted to be involved. Just speculating...

It seems odd, but totally possible. Bigger US stores like Target, Walmart, etc use children of employees and actual employees all the time. So perhaps they did. The father they quoted is staying 'anonymous' so that doesn't help and could be fake news to put a positive spin on the parenting angle for them.

 

[haute okole]

I only read a few blurbs, but see @haute okole ’s post above #570 quoting Souter, and I believe coming to the opposite conclusion As above.

Scalias majority opinion was that an offer to exchange child pornography is not a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Thus, upholding the constitutionality of the federal statute prohibiting the pandering of child pornography (the statute does not violate the first amendment). Or, in other words, child porn is not protected speech. Scalia was a strict constitutionalist, and the decision was based on the general principle that there is no First Amendment protection for offers to engage in illegal transactions.

The problem was that in keeping with prior child porn case, Ashcroft (that ruled a prior child porn statute was overly broad and did violate the First Amend ent), an offer to receive virtual child porn or simulated child porn is protected under the First Amendment. Scalia‘s exception, in accordance with Ashcroft, was that virtual pornography is protected free speech as it’s not harmful to the child.

Souter and Ginsberg dissented bc all child pornography is intrinsically harmful. . . which is the crux of the quote below and of NY vs. Ferber. In fact, Souter warned that this decision (based on no trigger of the concern for child safety over first amendment protection) would be problematic in many ways beyond porn.


"The tension with existing constitutional law is obvious," Souter wrote. " Free Speech Coalition reaffirmed that nonobscene virtual pornographic images are protected, because they fail to trigger the concern for child safety that disentitles child pornography to First Amendment protection." He also warned that the decision "might have an unsettling
significance well beyond the subject of child pornography." In Free Speech Coalition, the Court had ruled that that virtual pornography did not involve the same harms to children as pornography involving real children. This distinguished it from New York v. Ferber (1982), in which the Court had justified a child pornography exception to the First Amendment's broad free speech protections based on actual harm to The child

@mrsinsyder , as per Scalia the crime of child porn = when the speaker intends the listener that the subject depicts real children. Scalia actually reasoned that with virtual porn, (computer generated or animated) no real child was harmed.

ETA: I find constit law very dry, so may have missed an important point, so i would welcome correction lol

And there you have the exact reason why Williams case is a good example of a BAD decision. The slippery slope if Constitutional stretching. If it appears to be child pornography to the community, it should not be protected speech under the First Amendment. Eeew, those rumors about Scalia make so much sense, I won’t elaborate, just google it. Lay people, especially artists Who make it their life’s work to be sexually outrageous and provocative, should not be trying to interpret Williams and hide behind its carve out. Balenciaga should have stuck with Kanye, Kim and Julia Fox instead of real children. Souter is absolutely correct in his dissenting opinion.

 

[Love Of My Life]

A picture is worth 1000 words. Balenciaga & their creative team can put whatever spin they want on this
At the end of the day, it speaks for itself & whether Bal clients will support the
creativity, edginess & brand down the road remains to be seen

 

[maxxout]

@HAZE MAT, I may not agree with all of your points above, but I welcome your point of view. I agree think that the US is a very different market than Europe, and I think the Balenciaga decision makers should have done much more in the way of vetting this campaign. As I posted earlier. I do see the irony in the visuals, and I felt that the ad itself had artistic merit. But, that was almost irrelevant, as for many, the juxtaposition was a bridge too far. Thank you for providing context to the office ad; I’ve really only seen the child with the bear.

OT, but in answer, one of my favorite fashion sources is owned and run by a woman who has become a friend: Song in Vienna. She curates what I consider more artistic and avant garde fashion in an art fashion concept store. While I’ve admired some balenciaga fashion, it was always too louche and ironic for me to carry with any aplomb.

Decades ago, I wore some Issey; some Comme des Garçons; and some Dries Van Noten and Ann Deulmeister. I still have some old dries somewhere. now I wear mid century modern vintage dead stock (Donald brooks, adel Simpson, and Norell) mixed with chanel, dior, hermes, and brunello. I’ve gone towards custom leather from duret.com in Paris, and MtM Japanese sneakers (from Lafotte NY). Recently I’ve become much more enamored of French designed furniture (Pierre Augustine Rose and Sors and Piet Boon) than clothes.

Loewe RTW and some Spanish designers might be interesting but I don’t know much about them. Courreges is nice, but limited and a throw back to its archives.

ETA: Im not equipped to debate Demna‘s talent; I differ from you in that I think he should be fired, not simply bc his ad campaign is so offensive to the US Market, but bc he could not calibrate to that market and adjust accordingly. I also blame the executives who approved it. This storm could have easily been foreseen. kering seems to misstep more than Richmont group these days, and during Covid, the US and Asian markets grew exponentially, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to have the ad campaigns align with the top markets.

Off topic, but thank you for that list of brands you’re interested in. We share similar designers such as Issey Miyake, Comme des Garçons, Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeister. One of my long time favorites, Paul Harden I think has stopped working. And for the last several years, I’ve been shopping online with Yohji Yamamoto at ‘The Shop.’
In terms of Balenciaga, I have a couple of those motorcycle jackets and a lot of the early 2000 bags. But I’ve never really liked their clothing line and particularly not now.