Not all great minds can be understood, or so the creative director of Balenciaga thinks so.
After Balenciaga’s recent scandalous photo shoot, the brand received a rightful backlash on various social media platforms. The label's creative director, Demna Gvasalia, later made a public apology for the recent advertising campaign that included pictures of young kids surrounded by adult fetish clothing. In his words, it was “the wrong artistic choice of concept”, which only pushed the general public to doubt the brand’s entire creative and imaginative concepts interpretation.
Image Source: Jeremy Moeller/Getty
How did Balenciaga React?
After recognizing the scale of the issue they had created the company apologized and promised to remove the Gift Shop campaign from the internet. Yet some didn't want just the images to be taken down but the entire fashion house. With each new emerging post or article, the severity of the scandal kept escalating to the extent of users urging to "cancel" Balenciaga. The brand responded quickly by apologizing once more on Instagram.
However, soon after that, they immediately shifted the blame publicly by filing papers in a New York court, initiating a $25 million lawsuit against the production team with whom they worked. The audience was incensed by this duality. That kind of company response only highlighted that the brand has no crisis plan prepared and only tries to avoid responsibility.
Image Source: DietPRADA
The Man's Career-Destroying Job
A man behind the camera was also thrown under the fire. For this photoshoot Balenciaga invited the famous author of the project “Toy Stories”, Gabriele Galimberti, who claims in an interview with Amy Odell was wrongly criticized. He said that throughout the entire discussion of the photo shoot, they never sought his opinion. Gabriele was just needed for his "directing eye", while the team decided on the whole set and all of the so-called "punk" accessories.
Since the Gift Shop campaign images were released, the photographer received dozens of hateful emails and death threats, sabotaging his planned work projects and upcoming exhibition in Kazachstan. An innocent image of Gabriele’s lifetime project has evaporated completely making him regret collaborating with the brand.
Image Source: Mark Lennihan
What’s Next for Balenciaga?
No matter how hard the label attempts to distance itself from what is going on, it can't escape the fire. Dealing with the consequences of their mistakes responsibly would be merely the first step for the company to regain customer trust, and they have yet to take it.
Now Balenciaga is attempting to quell the avalanche of rage by pledging its financial support for anti-child-abuse foundations, albeit the names of the organizations are still being withdrawn. To rebuild an unmarred image, Balenciaga would have to conduct a complete rebranding, but even then a significant amount of their customers would be permanently lost.
Comments