After weeks of silence, Balenciaga creative director Demna has finally addressed the advertising scandal for involving children in captivity clothing and accusations of normalizing sexual fetishization and child abuse.
The Georgian designer posted a lengthy statement on Instagram, pledging to "engage with child protection organizations."
"I want to personally apologize for the wrong artistic choice of concept for the gift campaign with the children and take my responsibility. It was inappropriate for children to promote objects that had nothing to do with them. As much as I would sometimes like to provoke an opinion through my work, I would never intend to do so with such a terrible subject as child abuse that I condemn. I need to learn from this, listen and engage with child protection organizations to know how I can contribute and help with this terrible subject. I apologize to anyone who has been offended by visual images and Balenciaga has guaranteed that appropriate measures will be taken not only to avoid similar mistakes in the future, but also to take responsibility for protecting the welfare of children in any way we can,"he wrote.
View this post on Instagram
Last week, the French fashion house owned by Mering made one?? statement along with a lawsuit against the production company responsible for some of the images.
The fashion label was criticised after running an advertising campaign featuring young children modelling what look like teddy bear dressed in captivity clothing. Meanwhile, another ad showed legal documents from a Supreme Court case that ruled on federal laws regarding child pornography.
The fashion house has since apologized, removed the ads and promised internal investigations. He also filed a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of one of the ads.
