Balenciaga Sexualizing Children Shocks Kim Kardashian

There is a huge debate in today's world about children getting sexualized. Shorter hemlines and shorter tops all are a move towards making children look like a teenager. Amidst this and how to keep your children safe a new controversy erupted. Balenciaga a coveted fashion house rolled out a new campaign. Needless, to say such big campaigns are storyboarded months in advance and honed and filtered across many platforms yet the campaign was shocking to the core.

The two ad campaigns that have been facing backlash are one with children holding teddy bear purses of Balenciaga in BDSM accessories when zoomed in.

The second ad is from Balenciaga’s Spring 2023 campaign, which has a printout of a Supreme Court decision on child pornography.

Whether this was cryptical or just an angry designer getting back the brand we'd never know!

The brand faced backlash and issued an apology in an Instagram post that read, "We would like 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 first campaign, the gift collection campaign, featured children with plush bear bags dressed in what some have labeled 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. The second, separate campaign for spring 2023, which was meant to replicate a business office environment, included a photo with a page in the background from a Supreme Court ruling 'United States V. Williams' 2008 which confirms as illegal and not protected by freedom of speech the promotion of child pornography.

All the items included in this shooting were provided by third parties that confirmed in writing that these props were fake office documents. They turned out to be [real] papers most likely coming from the filming of a television drama. The inclusion of these unapproved documents was the result of reckless negligence for which Balenciaga has filed a complaint.

We take full accountability for our lack of oversight and control of the documents in the background and we could have done things differently."



Kim Kardashian is a Balenciaga ambassador and she was heavily questioned for her silence and no comments on this campaign. However, on Sunday she used her social platforms to share her anger and disgust for the same. After which, only Blaenciaga shared their apology. She said that as a mother of four kids this was not approved by anyone and in her words she was

 "shaken by the disturbing images" and "any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period."

The photographer and all people involved have issued apologies publicly. It is yet to be seen what happens to this controversy does it get a fair ending or do people forget it?