American reality television star Kim Kardashian is “re-evaluating” her relationship with Balenciaga after the luxury fashion brand was widely criticized for a campaign featuring children posing with teddy bears in what appeared to be bondage gear.
“As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images,” she said on Twitter. “The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society — period.”
Last week, photos surfaced of a Balenciaga campaign that showed children holding teddy bears in leather gear resembling that used in BDSM, an abbreviation for bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, and sadomasochism. One photo showed a child holding a bear that was dressed in wrist and ankle restraints with a lock and chain around its neck.
Fashion house Balenciaga has been heavily criticised over a photoshoot showing child models posing with fetish-themed teddy bears. The shoot went viral, especially in the US among users who object to what they see as “over-sexualising” young children.
As criticism built, a sarcastic tweet from YouTuber June Nicole Lapine gained a lot of traction and Balenciaga deleted all the images a short time later.
After this, some right-wing US media channels ran with the story, and accused the fashion house of “endorsing child pornography”. The accusation was fuelled by the campaign for its Adidas collaboration featuring the case notes referring to “virtual child porn”.
Balenciaga posted an apology to its 14 million Instagram followers and said its plush bear bags “should not have been featured with children”.
It said it had removed the items from sale and deleted the images from all web platforms.
The post ‘Disgusted, outraged’: Kim Kardashian condemns Balenciaga’s controversial campaign with children appeared first on The Current.
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