For once, everyone seems to be in agreement. The Balenciaga holiday campaign, featuring deeply unsettling images of children holding bondage-themed handbags, has been roundly condemned by fashion media, general media, and the internet. Unusually, the condemnation has been universal, with a broad consensus that an egregious line had been crossed. When it then swiftly emerged that another campaign by the brand featured perverse dog whistling regarding a US legal case concerning child abuse, the crisis grew, welcoming even more people into a harmonised cacophony of outrage and creating a rising tide of conspiracy theories.

In the material and nature of the decisions made by Balenciaga in devising, approving, and releasing this campaign, the brand’s blatant, relentless push for ‘edginess’ and subversion has rightly fallen flat on its face. The conclusion that Balenciaga got it deeply, disturbingly wrong is not in need of much interrogation. What followed the release of the ads themselves, though, presents its own complexity.

The corporate apology has a convoluted history featuring innumerable acts. Social media has both rapidly accelerated how quickly apologies are proffered, and prolonged the lifespan of contrition, with the court of public judgement perennially and ceaselessly in session. At this point, with so many templates and precedents to select from, the fact that brands can still get public apologies badly wrong can be bewildering. But Balenciaga has opened up new horizons of fumbling remorse, embarking on an orgy of blame-shifting, cod apologies, and a petulant earth-scorching of its Instagram grid.

Several days after the holiday campaign was released and as the criticism escalated, Balenciaga pulled the campaign and released a curt statement that apologised for any offence the ads ‘may have caused’. With the internet awakened, further examples of troubling inclusions in Balenciaga campaigns were eagerly unearthed. Cut to another apology from Balenciaga (the same day as the first one), this time for ‘displaying unsettling documents’ in their images. But a new twist: they will also now be taking ‘legal action’ against the people responsible for the inclusion of ‘unapproved items’ in the Spring 2023 campaign. This has materialised as a $25 million scapegoating lawsuit against the production company and set designer. And then the photographer for the holiday campaign, Gabriele Galimberti, released his own statement, insisting that the responsibility lay at the door of Balenciaga entirely, and he had zero input on the nature of the campaign. By November 28th, 12 days after the initial release of the holiday campaign, Balenciaga had released a third statement of apology, some ten times longer than the others. In this, finally, some measure of responsibility was taken. The final mea culpa? A wiped Instagram grid.

It shouldn’t need to be said that such a drawn-out, moody, mostly unrepentant ‘apology’ full of passing the buck isn’t the right way to assuage the justified concerns of consumers and commentators, let alone media buyers and investors. It is also interesting that the most extensive statement arrived only after Kim Kardashian, Balenciaga collaborator and ambassador, publicly denounced the brand’s actions and made it clear she was rethinking her relationship with them. Kardashian herself has been criticised for waiting too long to add her voice to the symphony of disapproval. Talking of Kardashians, Balenciaga recently severed ties with Kim’s ex-husband, Kanye West, for his own horribly offensive and harmful behaviour, indicating that the company is aware of the need to act decisively in the face of wrongdoing and public condemnation. (The push, pull and politics of celebrity endorsement and connection is fodder for a whole other conversation/full-length book).

Even in the complex, multilayered coding of internet judgement, when something has caused immediate and universal offence, the only response is to blast through the noise with that rare commodity in brand comms: conviction. A strong, direct, and accountable admission of culpability is what has been missing from Balenciaga, and it’s served only to add more admonition to not only the campaign but perceptions of the brand’s identity. Contrition and forgiveness can be slippery things when the boundaries of consumer expectations are constantly changing, but leading with honesty and humanity is the best place to start.