After Balenciaga received backlash for featuring children dressed in bondage in one of their campaigns, netizens are paying very close attention to other luxury brands-like in this case, Gucci and its HA HA HA campaign with Harry Styles.
Styles partnered with Gucci earlier this year to release his first-ever Gucci collection called HA HA HA, and the launch saw several pictures of the singer dressed in various fits from the collection in early November.
One particular picture from the campaign caught people's attention. It was a series of pictures of the "Watermelon Sugar" singer wearing a $750 teddy bear shirt and posing with a baby's mattress.
After the Balenciaga scandal, which erupted weeks after Style's campaign launched, people no longer find the pictures endearing or amusing, and they took to Twitter to air out concerns and frustrations regarding the matter.
According to Daily Mail UK, many noted that Gucci and Balenciaga are both owned by the same parent company, The Kering Group.
To make matters worse, an accompanying video from the launch saw Styles undressing and dressing, which only fueled the ire of netizens.
Criticisms
Ironically, the theme of the campaign revolves around "eccentric men" from the 70s, with the use of "romantic accents, whimsical prints, vintage details, and the expressive emotionality of the individual," as per the Gucci website.
According to Evie Magazine, Alessandro Michele, Gucci's creative director, wrote about the campaign: "Regarding the inspiration behind #GucciHAHAHA, I proposed creating a 'dream wardrobe' with him, starting from those small oddities that come together in childlike visions.'"
Sure enough, this is seen in the pictures and video for the campaign. Aside from the baby's mattress, there are many references to children with the use of stuffed animals and the like.
"Sick fvcks. That's a baby's crib mattress, [sic]" a Twitter user wrote angrily.
"They are rubbing it in your face because they know no one will do anything," another added.
"Be interested to hear Harry Styles take on this campaign and the purpose of it! Money is a powerful thing and people will do anything for it!"
The criticisms against Style's HA HA HA collection with Gucci comes weeks after Balenciaga's campaign scandal that has been recently brought to light.
According to People, the scandal stems from the brand's 2022 Gift collection campaign.
Many accused the brand of sexualizing children, as the pictures accompanying the launch showed children holding teddy bears wearing leather bondage gear.
Balenciaga has since apologized and taken responsibility over the questionable campaign pictures, and issued a statement: "This was a wrong choice by Balenciaga, combined with our failure in assessing and validating images.
"The responsibility for this lies with Balenciaga alone."
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