Balenciaga Alternate Timeline [2026]

The Brief

Tasked with imagining how an influential ad campaign might’ve altered the course of history if it had been approached differently, this presentation explores how things might have been different if Balenciaga had avoided the great BDSM teddy bear incident of 2022

The Strategy

Balenciaga’s influence during Demna Gvasalia’s tenure was indisputably significant in the realms of both street and high fashion. Balenciaga and Gsvalia’s own label VETEMENTS were crucial in shaping the stylistic appearance of cool since 2015. But it was all downhill since the Balenciaga campaign, in which children donned BDSM stuffed toys and articles that alluded to child trafficking could be seen in the background.

There are some things you just can’t come back from. Demna’s Balenciaga may have been doomed to fail anyway, as the pace of short-form media caught up with his style of ironic critique. In Guy Debord’s “detournement,” the media machine is combatted by recontextualizing semiotics in a way that creates friction. But sarcasm as a critical device quickly fails in a media environment that decimates the original context completely and immediately.

Once it gets to a point where nobody can tell if you are kidding–or why– irony is ineffective as commentary. And from this point, the most logical next step is to take it to the next level– hence the bondage teddy. But what if at some point somebody had clocked that maybe BDSM & children were not a great combination? Read more to find out.

The Work