New day, a new chapter in the controversy that has put the firm Balenciaga in the spotlight. It all started with the photographs of his Christmas campaign (now retired), in which boys and girls appeared with teddy bears dressed with common objects in sadomasochistic practices. However, that was only the beginning of a stream of hidden details found by Internet users in previous campaigns and that could be interpreted, either as an apology for pedophilia, or a frivolous treatment of it.
From a bag that rests on a page of the judgment of the case Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (which was successfully overturned in the US Supreme Court two provisions of the Child Pornography Prevention Law), to notations on the wall that, instead of being growth measurement marks, were dates of actual convictions for child abuse crimes…
Although Balenciaga has been characterized, in recent years, by an irreverent and provocative spirit, it now seems to have gone too far, provoking his biggest image crisis Without, up to now, their apologies or having held the producer North Six Inc. and the set designer Nicholas Des Jardins responsible with a demand of 25 million dollars.
the brand “Balenciaga” just did a uh….. interesting… photoshoot for their new products recently which included a very purposely poorly hidden court document about ‘virtual child porn’
normal stuff pic.twitter.com/zjMN5WhZ0s
— shoe (@shoe0nhead) November 21, 2022
The firm of Spanish origin continues to work on an internal investigation to clarify what happened, but what it has recognized is its share of responsibility in “not having reviewed and controlled“what the papers used for the campaign said and not “having done things differently”.
Downhill and no brakes towards the conspiracy
In the absence of a clearer explanation of what happened, conspiracy theories have run amok on social networks, where some users are still looking for new firewood with which to feed an already juicy initial controversy. Thus, now the focus has been placed on Lotta Volkovaa stylist who has worked with the brand and who is considered responsible for making ugliness fashionable.
@itsnot2late2wakeup Replying to @systae there’s definitely more to it than we know.. if this is what they are showing is what goes on behind closed doors?! #balenciaga #lottavolkova #foryoupage #foryou #exposed #fyp #rabbithole #cancelbalenciaga #fup #followformore #blowthisup #viral
♬ Creepy and simple horror background music(1070744) – howlingindicator
Both her work for different fashion brands and Lotta’s personal Instagram (now private) have been scrutinized by internet users for her provocative posts, gore aesthetics and taste for bondage. And, along with her, her friend and collaborator of hers from Balenciaga has fallen Alban Adam.
The personal accounts of both, which they could well be anyone’s tumblr emo kid/urban gothic from 2011have been overanalyzed and interpreted literally to the point of escalating this controversy to the category of conspiracy, relating them (and, by extension, Balenciaga) to sects, satanism, sadism and, of course, pedophilia.
The defense of the latter has been joined by the American extreme right, backed by an element that is repeated in some of Alban’s photos and that has been enough to revive and relate this case to a previous one: Pizza.
The second season of Pizzagate
The repetitive appearance of pizzas in some of Alban Adam’s publications has been enough to resurface and connect Balenciaga with a viral hoax dubbed pizzagate. Spread during the 2016 presidential elections in the United States, this rumor claimed that the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington was the epicenter of an alleged pedophile ring linked to Hillary Clinton and other Democratic Party personalities.
Despite being denied, the information was disseminated on social networks, portals such as 4chan and pages of fake news. All of this led to death threats being received by the owner and staff of the restaurant, and by an armed man appearing at the pizzeria and opening fire. However, far from putting an end to the hoax, the shooting caused the conspiracy ball to get bigger and keep rolling until now reaching Balenciaga.
In this way, the far-right conspiracists have found in Alban’s Instagram pizzas the supposed irrefutable proof that pizzagate is real and that Balenciaga would also be involved in garlic. Thus, there are many TikTok users who are uploading to the network montages made with decontextualized photos and horror movie music that they point to both of them as the thread to pull to discover, judging by the comments left by other users, from Joe Biden’s darkest secrets to proving the existence of the devil and going through the fact that reptilians are a reality and live among us .
Cover photo | @ssense
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