Balenciaga’s Failed Response To Holiday Campaign Scandal
Balenciaga has been crowned the King of Haute Couture for the last 10 decades, and with good reason. The fashion house has consistently opened and closed Fashion week internationally. They’ve dressed celebrities from Audrey Hepburn to Kim Kardashian.
But in the last two months they are at risk at losing it all while facing disgust amongst the new age of consumers. And Balenciaga’s decades old history could be looking at it’s last decade as a beloved name in fashion.
The scandal erupted when Balenciaga released its 2022 Holiday ad campaign that featured children posing with bags that look like teddy bears dressed in BDSM gear.
And there’s no clear explanation or honest truth behind why this campaign was created and published. But the public has ripped Balenciaga a new one. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian publicly denounced their associations with the fashion house, and their profits have dropped exponentially. The campaign was a disaster, and their reaction to the public was a PR mess.
Balenciaga’s response on their social media
(left)
At first, they ignored the scandal on their side of the turf and pushed the blame to the photographer, Gabriele Galimberti. That blame came with a $25 million lawsuit. Not one side is innocent in this case, but Galimberti stated that he had no control in the content in the shoot. And later, Balenciaga dropped the charges when it was time to call their bluff.
They eventually took accountability in the campaign. But the dodginess, withdrawing the lawsuit and multifaceted responses over the entire scandal left Balenciaga looking more suspicious and indifferent to their actions than ever.
TWO MONTHS after the campaign scandal, The house announced on Instagram that they will be joining a three year program with Washington DC nonprofit organization to train 2,000 professionals specialized in dealing with child abuse.
The thing is, this announcement has missed the initial wave of media publicity. With a little google search, I came upon hundreds of articles and blog posts about the scandal. I had to dig for one article featuring the news of this new nonprofit collaboration that was released yesterday. Frankly, the public has already made up their mind and Balenciaga missed it’s time in the limelight to respond. Now most of the public will never know that Balenciaga made somewhat of an attempt to redeem itself, that ship has sailed.
Approaching this situation from a public relations perspective, the haute couture house is a complete mess. The fact that the pornographic campaign even aired showcases a poor knowledge of the brands relationship with the public, and who the modern day public even is. It seemed that each action following the scrutiny of the campaign was hastily decided or ignored altogether. Perhaps the brand didn’t fully understand the power of - “what is put on the internet, stays on the internet,” and was hoping the scenario would blow over quickly.
The best approach I could imagine, would of been if Balenciaga attempted to redeem their human to human qualities with the public immediately after the backlash. This includes having a spokesperson come forward instead of apologizing with a white text on a black background posted on their Instagram story. Acknowledging their responsibility of signing off and even allowing something like the campaign to be released under their name. The lawsuit seemed childish, teaming up with the others guilty of associating with the creation of the ad in publicly apologizing together would bring forth a sense of unified responsibility.
Most importantly, their sign up with the nonprofit should have been information that was released immediately during the limelight of the scandal. Releasing it so late in the game was the opposite of breaking news.
The creative director of Balenciaga told Vogue in an interview discussing the scandal that from now on, they won’t be chasing the big splashes and trends of digital media and will stick to the quality of their clothing. And for their sake, I hope they do.
For those who are new to Balenciaga, The world renowned fashion house was established in the Basque Country in Spain before relocating to France and opening a boutique store in 1937. Balenciaga rose to fame after using sleek in linear lines in their collection during the post-war era, that took a different direction from Dior's hourglass shape that was popular at the time.
Balenciaga on the left. Christian Dior on the right. Both designs were made in the 1930’s.
