After included court documents from a child pornography case in its spring 2023 campaign, the fashion house sued a production company and set designer a week earlier.
The company also received criticism for a another advertisement that featured youngsters holding teddy bears dressed as bond girls.
After one advertisement was supposed to include some backdrop desk objects and false court records from a prop house—but instead showed an actual SCOTUS ruling—Balenciaga sued production company North Six and set designer Nicholas Des Jardins.
Balenciaga is dropping the $25 million lawsuit against producers of the ad campaign that landed the brand in pretty hot water.
via Page Six:
Reps for North Six and Des Jardins denied that they were responsible, and there was also an outcry from fashion pros saying the parties shouldn’t be blamed for a company’s ads.
Celeb collaborators including Kim Kardashian also chided the brand publicly over its poor judgement and lack of oversight.
On Friday, Balenciaga said it was ceasing the litigation, according to a social media statement by its CEO.
Meanwhile, the hip fashion brand’s creative director, Demna, apologized on Instagram for the teddy bear campaign.
“I want to personally apologize for the wrong artistic choice of concept for the gifting campaign with the kids and I take my responsibility,” the designer wrote. “It was inappropriate to have kids promote objects that had nothing to do with them,” he continued, adding that although he wants “to provoke a thought” in his campaigns, he “would NEVER have an intention to do that with such an awful subject as child abuse.”
He added, “I need to learn from this, listen and engage with child protection organizations to know how I can contribute and help on this terrible subject.”
The company previously posted: “The two separate ad campaigns in question reflect a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility.”
Balenciaga commissioned, approved, and published the ads. They had no case.
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