Balenciaga’s ‘BDSM Kids’ Ad Photographer Is Afraid Of Not Finding Work Again
Photo 250240023 © Sylvain Robin | Dreamstime.com
When Balenciaga got in touch with him to stand behind the lens of its holiday gift shoot, he jumped at the chance—despite being an esteemed photographer, this was his first advertising campaign. Big mistake.
Gabriele Galimberti now fears his career may be ruined forever. Speaking in an interview with PetaPixel, the Italian photographer says he has received “thousands” of death threats and simultaneously lost several job opportunities in the wake of his involvement with a highly controversial Balenciaga campaign featuring young children with bondage-themed teddy bears.
Balenciaga using photos of little girls playing with teddy bears dressed in bondage gear on their website. Lovely. pic.twitter.com/mYnt0CJuif
— Slarty Bartfast (@DatCatDer) November 20, 2022
Haters have grilled him both online and by phone call, claiming that they know his address and would come over and attack him. His phone number was leaked in a tweet by someone who invited these ambushes, says the photographer.
Before the scandal tainted his name, Galimberti was most reputed for his Toy Stories series portraying children in their bedrooms with their belongings on display. The Balenciaga campaign sought to emulate the aesthetic, albeit with bizarro adult themes.
While the fashion house eventually stepped in to say it would take full responsibility for its “failure in assessing and validating [the] images,” and added that it would not sue the photographer, Galimberti says the brand’s initial inaction led to his undoing.
Galimberti tells PetaPixel that he has feared he will never find work again because the public was pointing fingers at him as though he was in charge of the project in the first week of the backlash.
He’s had a feature with National Geographic fall through since, and his exhibition this month has been canceled. One client who wanted to purchase three of his prints has walked back on those plans.
Galimberti admits it was the money that drew him to the Balenciaga campaign. While clients like National Geographic would pay him US$400 to US$500 per day, Balenciaga offered about “20 times more,” he shares in the interview. That amount would cover an entire year of his rent—“it’s not easy to say no,” he remarks.
The photographer stresses that he had no creative control over the content of the campaign, and that this is all the more true for a big name like Balenciaga. However, he put his trust on the 25 others who were present on set.
What he did was the lighting and the photography, Galimberti defends. He first shot with mannequins, and when the photos were approved by Balenciaga’s headquarters in one or two hours, the dummies were swapped out for the child models. The shoot was complete five minutes after the children had arrived with their parents.
Hey Photographers :
— Hoop (@xhoop) November 21, 2022
When Balenciaga hires you to shoot their new lookbook & you show up to find a toddler laid across a sofa with wine glasses & bondage gear arranged around them, you walk away. Period. pic.twitter.com/DSoHgQLM6O
Galimberti says that as a documentary photographer, he simply follows whatever is in front of him, and he carried this ethos into this shoot.
When Balenciaga passed the offending bags, depicting teddy bears in BDSM-like gear, to the kids, it was the first time the photographer had seen the products, he explains in the tell-all.
In hindsight, he acknowledges he was perhaps being naive for believing that the bags were “punk-inspired,” as was described by Balenciaga staffers.
“I’m not stupid,” Galimberti asserts. He says if the children were handed dildos, he’d have known for sure. Although the bears looked “ugly” to him, he had no experience in fashion and let the judgment go to the experts.
Galimberti adds that even if he had the chance to turn back the clock, and he had known what he knows now, Balenciaga might not have accepted his reluctance on set as there was already a contract in place. The only way the decision could have been reversed is if he said no to the project from the get-go.
You can read the full interview by heading over to PetaPixel’s article.
[via PetaPixel, images via various sources]
