Luxury brand Balenciaga has apologized for its holiday ads campaign depicting children holding teddy bears in bondage gear.
When Balenciaga shared the images as part of its campaign, it came under severe flak, with many social media users accusing the brand of sexualizing children. Some critics were particularly miffed because, of all things, the campaign appeared to be exposing children to BDSM.
One of the images shared by the brand alongside those of children and teddy bears showed a Supreme Court document (a ruling on the Ascroft Vs. Free Speech Coalition), which dwelled on child pornography.
Thanks to the public outcry against the ad campaign, the brand deleted the images across all its social media platforms while also tendering an apology for its action. Taking to Instagram, the brand had written: “We sincerely apologize for any offense our holiday campaign may have caused.” It took down all the images from the campaign. Soon enough, it archived all its Instagram posts
Although the images have since been taken down, you can still check out some of them below.
The photographer who had taken the shots also clarified in a post on Instagram that he merely took the shots and wasn’t the one who decided on what should be photographed
