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Balenciaga dropped its holiday ad campaign recently, and it immediately faced backlash. The ad featured children holding teddy bears in bondage harnesses and costumes.
The BDSM imagery isn’t anything new for the couture brand. BDSM accessories were also on the runway at Balenciaga’s show at Paris Fashion Week. BDSM is an acronym that stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, sadism and masochism.
But the problem with the holiday ads was that they featured children; they had a bondage look linked to pedophilia themes. Celebrity after celebrity disassociated themselves from the brand.
But according to right-wing influencer Felecia Killings, who bills herself as the “Conscious Conservative,” one celebrity who has yet to speak out absent the band is Kanye West. West, who changed his name to Ye, did have a partnership with the brand, but following his online Twitter rant that was condemned as antisemitic, Balenciaga became one of the brands to cut ties with West in October.
Recently, however, West announced his support for Balenciaga.
“I stand by Balenciaga and denounce all witch hunts, and I cancel culture Jesus is King Ending trafficking doesn’t start or end with a fashion campaign for Christ Sake,” he said in the midst of a Twitterstorm late Dec. 1.
He then said in a second tweet, which featured a picture of himself, “Never turn our backs Demna and the Balenciaga family for life. Cancel culture Jesus please heal.”
Earlier in the day on Dec. 1, the disgraced artist shared on Twitter a text exchange with Balenciaga’s creative director, Demna Gvasalia.
Felecia Killings, founder and CEO of the Felecia Killings Foundation, a conservative values organization, tweeted about West and the Balenciaga scandal.
“This is the Balenciaga brand look,” Killings tweeted Dec. 1, along with a photo of a woman, presumably that of West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, dressed in a Balenciaga outfit complete with a BDSM mask.
Killings’ tweet continued, “It directly coincides with their bondage teddy bear ads they had featuring little children. KANYE WEST is still promoting them in his interviews and appearances. YE is STILL a part of that agenda AND HE HAS HIJACKED OUR ENTIRE MOVEMENT!!!”
Killings is also the founder and CEO of the Conscious Conservative Movement through which she serves as a strategist for national and statewide conservative movements, according to her website.
On November 22, the fashion house issued two statements via its Instagram Stories. The statements apologized for the BDSM plush bears the minors are holding in the ads. They said the stuffed bears “should not have been featured with children in this campaign,” as well as the “unsettling documents” in the separate spring/summer campaign: “We take this matter very seriously and are taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items for our spring 23 campaign photoshoot. We strongly condemn abuse of children in any form. We stand for children’s safety and well-being.”
The “unsettling documents” refer to a page from a Supreme Court ruling called United States vs Williams that is featured in one of the ads. The Supreme Court ruling “United States v. Williams” 2008 upheld the PROTECT Act, which increased federal protections against child pornography.
“PROTECT” stands for “Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today.” This act marked important progress in the protection of America’s children, and gave law enforcement authorities valuable new tools to prevent, deter, investigate, prosecute and punish violent, according to federal government information sit GovInfo.gov.
As soon as the scandal hit Balenciaga filed a $25 million lawsuit against the production company behind the ad campaign. But the fashion house has since dropped the lawsuit against the production outfit North Six and set designer Nicholas Des Jardins, RadarOnline.com reported.
Kanye West (L) on InfoWars, Dec. 1, 2022, screenshot/Balenciaga ad featuring a young girl is pictured holding a teddy bear in bondage-style gear, Balenciaga website.
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