Balenciaga creative director Demna deals with BDSM scandal

Balenciaga creative director Demna finally addressed the brand’s BDSM ad scandal, which sparked a lot of backlash from fans and celebrities last year.

The fashion house made headlines when it shot two separate ad campaigns featuring children dressed in leather jackets with teddy bears and holding what appeared to be BDSM accessories.

Balenciaga has since retracted the campaign and dismissed claims that it encouraged any form of child abuse, all the way to a $25 million lawsuit against the set designers.

Read on for more details

Demna talks about the process leading to the creation of the scandalous campaign

During a recent interview FashionDemna opened up about the controversy, the lawsuit, the brand’s negligence and its path forward.

The creative director shared that the intention behind the first campaign, ‘The Spring 2023 Campaign’, was to hammer home the idea of ​​power dressing, while the second campaign, titled ‘The Gift Shop Campaign’, was aimed at promoting the products. the holiday season.

“Children’s clothing was part of the ‘gift shop’ offering, along with teddy bear bags, which refer to punk and DIY culture, not BDSM at all, and were worn by adults at the October 2022 show,” he said.

Demna explained that the photographer’s props included toys in the room and that the brand wanted to include different types of products at the same time to cover as much ground as possible, which is why the campaigns came out the way they did.

Demna admits she made a mistake

The Georgian-born fashion designer believes he and Balenciaga made a grave mistake in assuming that surrounding children with such items would send the right message.

“Unfortunately, it was a bad idea and a bad decision on my part. Children should not have been shown in images with objects that are unrelated to them and inappropriate for them,” he said.

Demna explained that the whole issue slipped under Balenciaga’s nose, even after internal and external auditors vetoed it, calling it an “error in judgment.”

He apologized for the mistake and indicated that he would be more careful next time and that the brand would pay more attention to its campaign before releasing any images.

It was not intentional

Demna, 41, revealed that the details of the ad, which sparked outrage from fans and led some to believe the brand was sexualising children, were not intentional and that the two campaigns were unrelated.

“I was shocked when I heard about their presence on the set of the spring 2023 campaign. It was a series of careless and unfortunate but unintentional coincidences,” he noted.

Demna claimed he had no idea how the materials — which included a Supreme Court ruling that the First Amendment does not protect against the promotion of child pornography — got there.

He said that when the allegations began to fly, he and his entire team were shocked, saying that he supports Balenciaga’s values ​​and will continue to fight to make it relevant.

Balenciaga is taking steps to ensure you never make the same mistake again

Elsewhere in the interview with him FashionDemna shared that the fashion house is taking steps to prevent this from happening in the future.

He highlighted that Balenciaga is revamping the image department and introducing checks to ensure that every image goes through a rigorous vetting process, both internally and externally, before being released.

He said: “From a personal point of view, as a creative director, I have to question absolutely everything now. It really changes the way I work, which used to be more instinctive; doing something that might be considered provocative just because I thought, Oh, this is fun.

Demna revealed that she has learned her lesson from the whole controversy and will be more “mature” and “serious” in her approach to her creativity.