Teddybears In Bondage

Most brands mark the holiday season with ads featuring trees, lights, jollity and a preponderance of red. Balenciaga marked it with a series of ads featuring teddybears in bondage gear, clutched by girls who looked no older than three, surrounded by empty wine glasses. There’s not enough space or stomach here to decode the painstakingly executed BDSM, child pornography and child molestation references that pepper the series of images, but if you’re a fashion PR, you should read more about the story, not only to stay informed, but because it really matters.

There are so many things to say about these appalling ads, but I’ll confine myself to the lessons PRs and their brands can learn from them. Which is: in 2022, it’s not enough to pull an ad and apologise, particularly if your apology is insincere. Social media will call you out on every inconsistency in your narrative, and there are enough users on Instagram alone willing to spend hours researching and posting evidence that supports their claims while damning yours. 

Did Balenciaga think they were being edgy? Was their motive purely to get talked about? Did they arrogantly underestimate the intelligence of their audience and think no-one would pick apart every item in the frames? Or was that the point: that they would, and be shocked accordingly? 

This is an all-time low for fashion. All of us who work in this industry need to do our own research, decide who the real villains in this story are, and do whatever is in our power to stop a sh*tshow like this happening again.