Luxury fashion house Balenciaga has sued a French company that handled its controversial ad campaign for $25 million. The company faced widespread backlash over two ad campaigns involving children. One of the ads featured children holding the brand's teddy bears in bondage gear. The company is also facing scrutiny for its second ad - for Spring 2023 campaign - for its use of a printout of a Supreme Court decision on child pornography. Balenciaga has apologized on its Instagram page and purged all the photos of the controversial ads.
On Monday, the company shared new statement on Instagram "to address the controversies surrounding our recent ad campaigns".
"We strongly condemn child abuse; it was never our intent to include it in our narrative. The two separate ad campaigns in question reflect a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility," the statement said.
"The first campaign, the gift collection campaign, featured children with plush bear bags dressed in what some have labelled BDSM-inspired outfits. Our plush bear bags and the gift collection should not have been featured with children. This was a wrong choice by Balenciaga, combined with our failure in assessing and validating images. The responsibility for this lies with Balenciaga alone," it added.
About the second campaign, the company said the French form North Six made "inexplicable acts and omissions" by displaying in an ad a court decision upholding a criminal prohibition against child pornography, according to the complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court.
Balenciaga further claimed that the production house's "malevolent, or at the very least, extraordinarily reckless" supervising of the ad has led to the "false association" between the company and the "repulsive and deeply disturbing subject of the court decision", as per Hollywood Reporter.
The ad saw celebrities like Kim Kardashian slamming Balenciaga and posting on Instagram that she is re-evaluating brand ties.
