Balenciaga Incident 

On November 16, 2022, the Spanish luxury brand Balenciaga received instant backlash for publishing a campaign that displayed demonic elements and child pornography. The photographs featured six children holding tattered-looking teddy bear handbags. The designer, Denma Gvasalia, designed the teddy bears in fishnet tops, leather harnesses, and chains. On November 21, Balenciaga released another campaign, the Garde-Robe campaign, which featured props of “unsettling documents” about child pornography. Trending videos on social media under the hashtags “#cancelBalenciaga” and “#burnBalenciaga” shows people destroying and throwing out their Balenciaga designer products as an expression of their hatred and disgust with the brand. Since the fallout, Gvasalia issued two public apologies on Instagram for the inappropriate images stating that they “immediately removed the campaigns from all platforms.” In Balenciaga’s second apology, they announced “taking legal action against the parties responsible for creating the set” and filed a $25 million lawsuit against the production company North Six and Nicholas Des Jardins. However, a week after filing the lawsuit Balenciaga dropped the charges against the production company and received further resentment for not holding anyone accountable. Kim Kardashian, an ambassador of the brand, responded to the scandal by claiming that she would re-evaluate her relationship with the company, however, she still received backlash for not speaking out about the situation sooner. Some critics suspect that Balenciaga may be in a crisis after the controversy since they have recently provided sales of up to 50% off plus free shipping.