High-end fashion brand Balenciaga is under fire in recent days over its disturbing portrayal of children in its photoshoot for its Spring/Summer 2023 Collection. Founded by the Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga, the brand had recently updated the homepage of its website with pictures of pre-pubescent girls in bondage-style gear.
Ever since then, Balenciaga has been widely criticised for promoting child pornography and its use of children to promote its products. Now, Bollywood celebrity Malaika Arora has drawn the ire of netizens for flaunting a Balenciaga dress at a Manish Malhotra party that she attended.
Malaika attended fashion designer Manish Malhotra’s birthday party at his Mumbai home. At this party, Malaika appeared in a silver turtle neck dress with the Balenciaga logo which didn’t go unnoticed.
One Twitter user, Monica Verma wrote, “Meet Malaika Arora. A Bollywood celebrity flaunting her Balenciaga dress despite this brand being under fire over their child-sexual abuse advertisements.”
Meet Malaika Arora. A Bollywood celebrity flaunting her Balenciaga dress despite this brand being under fire over their child-sexual abuse advertisements.
— Monica Verma (@TrulyMonica) December 6, 2022
The same Bollywood pontificates others pic.twitter.com/pIyCxnxkqm
Several Instagram users also took offense to her fashion choice and criticised Malaika for choosing Balenciaga… Responding to a post by Viral Bhayani, one user wrote, “Supporting Balenciaga aka pedophilia brand still….”. Another user posted, ““She literally could not have picked any other designer to wear?! Absolutely shameful. Yet another reason to not look at celebs as role models.”
Another user commented, “Wearing Balenciaga??? Really ?? I am totally against cancel culture but not when it comes to child pornography. This brand needs to be cancelled for good and a celebrity, you need to do it first.”
Malaika Arora is yet to respond to all the online comments and hasn’t bothered to explain her sartorial choices even as the brand she flaunted is facing allegations of pedophilia and child abuse.
In their much-criticised photoshoot, Balenciaga showed children posing with teddy bears, which were dressed in fishnet tops, leather harnesses, and collars with locks. One of the disturbing images also contained documents from a child abuse case.
