What to do (and calls to action) after the Balenciaga scandal
The internet has (rightfully) been ablaze since the Balenciaga photoshoots and scandals.
And while some articles are trying to pin this as a “QAnon conspiracy” and while Tucker Carlson is using this as an opportunity to spew “grooming” speeches, we can’t get distracted.
Balenciaga is pointing the finger at photographers and creative studios. People on the left are pointing the finger at Tucker, QAnon and the right. People on the right are pointing the finger at the LGBTQ community and “Hollyweird”
Folks, join me in rising above this and focusing in at the issue at hand.
Balenciaga has now released three, separate photoshoots that reference, showcase, or allude to child abuse materials.
The first, is the photoshoots of children posing with bears in bondage (fetish) gear (and in front of alcohol glasses). It’s entirely inappropriate for Balenciaga to pair children posing with these adult themes, and it should never have happened.
The second photoshoot was a collaboration with Adidas, where a bag is placed on top of documents, and when zooming in, you can see that the documents reference United States v. Williams, a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the PROTECT Act, a law that criminalizes advertising, promoting, presenting, or distributing child pornography.
What on earth? For all documents to be under a purse (which by the way, each document in a photoshoot is carefully chosen, vetted, and brought to the location of the photoshoot) the odds of having a document under a purse randomly, accidentally be referencing child pornography is the same odds as winning the lottery. It just makes no sense.
The third photoshoot is this one, showing a woman working in the office, but as folks noticed, the book that’s on her desk is the book of the painter Michaël Borremans, whose work frequently features children. He describes his work “Fire from the Sun” as “toddlers engaged in playful but mysterious acts with sinister overtones and insinuations of violence.”
And look, while that last one is a bit “Taylor Swift easter egg” to me, all three of these together are concerning, and I find the document under the purse the most bizarre. I can’t think of any other designer or brand who has included child pornography documents in their photoshoots. I can’t even think of why that would be done.
The most frustrating thing in all of this, too, is that Balenciaga’s response is passing the buck. We spoke about this at length on Patreon, but for over a week now, the company is suggesting the photographer could be to blame, or the creative studios they worked with.
How is that a reasonable answer, when references of this have been in three of your campaigns which means it’s not the photographer or studio that’s the common denominator - it’s Balenciaga.
I’m not suggesting that this is a part of a ritual or satantic shit but rather - it’s incredibly odd, sinister, and Balenciaga still has not explained how or why this happened three separate times.
And we can tweet and text about it all we want, but in order to really push Balenciaga into doing an internal investigation to why this happened, and solving the problem, I suggest we reach out to them and their retailers to show that there is public demand for this issue getting resolved.
Balenciaga - do not be like the churches and schools and television networks that cover up wrongdoing and pass predators silently from one place to another for the “good” of the brands reputation. Find out why these photoshoots happened, share the reason, and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Here are some steps I’ve taken, and I suggest you do too! These are simple, easy, and can be done on your laptop as you binge TV!
Email Balenciaga (you can even copy and paste my message)
First, their Contact Us page is here. I’ve also found a few emails below you can email:
Martina.Tiefenthaler@balenciaga.com
I’m sending in something like this:
The recent response from Balenciaga on their child photoshoot (and inclusion of a document referencing child abuse materials) is really disappointing and completely unacceptable. The fact that child abuse has now been referenced in three different Balenciaga photoshoots tells us that this is not the fault of a photographer or studio, but this is a problem directly coming from Balenciaga itself. You absolutely, 100% NEED to do an investigation internally to find out who (or whom) is responsible for this, shine a light on the problem, and publicly get rid of it. Do not be like the churches and schools and other institutions that enable, protect, and hide their predators. Please take this opportunity as a chance for you to show the right way this should be handled.
You probably, 100% most likely won’t get a response, but their teams will be monitoring customer response and reaction and since so many people roll their eyes at “cancellation tweets” emails like this and giving your feedback on their Contact Us page is a way to send their company direct asks to fix this.
Reach out to retailers who sell Balenciaga
I’ve created a list of these below as well as some copy if you want to copy/paste:
Saks Fifth Avenue (when I clicked to submit, my request didn’t go through, let me know if it did for you)
Nordstrom email: contact@nordstrom.com
Bloomingdales email: internationalcustomerservice@bloomingdales.com
Hi there, I'm curious if you will still continue to sell Balenciaga products. The fact that this company has included child abuse references and materials in three separate photoshoots of theirs is incredibly unsettling - and their response of passing the blame to photographers and studio companies rather than looking internally to find out who is promoting this is incredibly disappointing as well. I only want to shop and spend my money at places that firmly boycott anyone who is participating in references of child abuse (Balenciaga) and wanted to see if you have any plans to address this or change your relationship with the designer.
And lastly, don’t be afraid to talk about this in person or online. A lot of news articles are framing this as a “conspiracy theory” but I don’t think it’s a conspiracy at all to simply want to know: why did Balenciaga put that piece of paper under the purse, and who at that company wanted children posing with alcohol glasses and the bondage bears?
These are questions that should be answered, and it’s not wrong at all to expect Balenciaga to know who at their very own company created their own photoshoot I mean jesus christ.
Let me know if there are any other call to action ideas you have for this.
Until the next one,
S