Demna on the Record

The Balenciaga artistic director addresses the brand's ad campaign controversy and charts his way forward.

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In November of last year, Balenciaga released two advertising campaigns: one to promote its holiday offering, called Gift Shop; the other, which appeared five days later, in support of its Spring 2023 collection, which had been shown at the New York Stock Exchange some months earlier.

Within days of its publication, the social media reaction to the Gift Shop campaign rapidly went from a trickle to a storm: Critics condemned the house for showing children holding bags designed to look like destroyed teddy bears, with studs and harnesses, amid an array of grown-up items before them—a Balenciaga-branded wine glass, for example. Many felt the bags referenced BDSM, and that their presence on the shoot was an abhorrent sexualization of children. (The bags had been shown in October during Paris Fashion Week, and were carried by adults; Balenciaga stated the design reference was not BDSM, but punk.)

Days later, the Spring 2023 campaign was published, and internet sleuthing revealed the presence of three props that added to the furor: a printout from the Supreme Court ruling in the case of United States v. Williams—which confirmed that First Amendment rights did not include the promotion of child pornography—half visible from beneath a Balenciaga handbag; a book by the Belgian artist Michaël Borremans, whose work has stirred controversy, particularly around sinister-seeming images of toddlers playing in ways that appear disturbed, deranged, or violent (though the book in the campaign did not contain such work); and a fake framed college certificate on a wall bearing a name that, when googled, brought up the identities of many real people, including that of a convicted child abuser.