The Patriot Post® · The Cultural Grooming of Balenciaga

Balenciaga is a fashion house that was created by Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1917. It is now owned by the French company Kering, which also owns Gucci and Saint Laurent.

Balenciaga is the darling of American celebrities; Kim Kardashian and Kanye “Ye” West both have ties to it. But the fashion brand has been dancing closer and closer to the edge of tolerance even for the Left with its outrageous ads and controversial runway shows.

The Horrific Ads

Balenciaga finally fell off the cliff recently with its holiday gift-themed ads featuring very young children, perhaps toddlers, holding teddy bear purses, and on those teddy purses is bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism (BDSM) gear.

That’s not all.

Balenciaga also had a separate ad for its hourglass bag that very prominently featured a piece of paper with discernible writing on it. That paper turned out to be a court document from United States v. Williams, a 2008 Supreme Court decision on the subject of child pornography in which the justices used the precedent of the PROTECT Act, a law passed by Congress in 2002. The PROTECT Act “prohibits anyone from advertising, promoting, presenting, or distributing child pornography even if the underlying material does not actually constitute child pornography,” according to law professor David L. Hudson Jr. “It was called the pandering provision in the litigation.” Michael Williams was in violation of this act because he was soliciting child pornographic images.

The Backlash and Apology

The condemnation was swift and decisive. Balenciaga was the deserving subject of #cancelBalenciaga on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Balenciaga quickly wiped clean its Instagram last week. The images of its ads can now be found only via screenshots on other social media platforms. All that remained on Balenciaga’s Instagram was an apology of sorts: “The first campaign, the gift collection campaign, featured children with plush bear bags dressed in what some have labeled BDSM inspired outfits. Our plush bear bags and the gift collection should not have been featured with children. This was a wrong choice by Balenciaga, combined with our failure in assessing and validating images, the responsibility lies with Balenciaga alone.”

Even in taking responsibility, the company tries to shift blame, laying the fault at the door of people who “interpreted” these teddy bear purses to be garbed in BDSM gear.

As for the United States v. Williams document, Balenciaga declared that it was pursuing legal action against production company North Six and set designer Nicholas Des Jardins. According to Balenciaga, the papers used in the shoot were most likely recycled from a TV legal drama set. The fashion house placed the “negligence” of that design decision at the door of the aforementioned third parties.

This lawsuit was a virtue signal from the start. There is no such thing as an accident when it comes to high fashion. This is an art form in which every detail is meticulously thought out and placed. Denma, the creative director for Balenciaga, scrutinizes every image. There is no way that either ad campaign’s material was an unfortunate mistake.

Balenciaga has since dropped its litigation.

Kim Kardashian has declared that she is “reevaluating” her association with the fashion brand. Other celebrities have spoken out as well. Cooper Kupp, wide receiver for the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, was more direct in his condemnation, saying, “To try to be a voice for our children, who rely on the protection of the men and women that were entrusted the responsibility of nurturing them and raising them up: please make yourself aware of the attack against our young ones by @balenciaga, and ensure that they are held responsible for it!”

The outrage has continued to spill over, as many believe an apology from the fashion brand is not enough.

Cultural Grooming

As a fashion brand, Balenciaga specializes in glorifying the unlovely. It sells literal garbage bags for thousands of dollars — and people are buying them. It’s not a coincidence that this brand is favored by the Hollywood elite or that its images are increasingly controversial and pointed. Sadly, it is unsurprising that these ad campaigns were allowed to go out.

Balenciaga is by no means the only fashion brand to play with sexually explicit material in an attempt to normalize sexual perversion. Recall that Adidas, not too long ago, released images of exposed female bosoms to sell sports bras.

Sexual perversion sells. With the pushing of the LGBTQ+ agenda, and transgenderism in particular, the elites are trying to accelerate the culture further down the slippery slope. The attempts to normalize pedophilia are simply the next step. The cultural shapers are associating pedophilia intrinsically with LGBTQ+, and they are using all their institutions to do it. Meanwhile, they label anyone who notices as bigoted.

Using sexually explicit material and the shock of such perversion in advertising forces people to morally compromise themselves. It is a classic tactic of the porn industry as a whole. The more exposure the public has to pornography, the easier it is to entrap and enslave people to its evils. Society’s more vulnerable people — i.e., women and children — are adversely affected.

Thankfully, Balenciaga’s explicit attack against children has had a uniting effect, as so many issues surrounding our children do. Both the Left and the Right were disgusted and similarly condemning of this campaign (except for the likes of Slate).

Our children need continued protection against groomers who are openly attacking their innocence and their bodily safety. Balenciaga should continue to face severe consequences for its actions.