CLAIM: A photo shows Lotta Volkova, the top designer for luxury fashion brand Balenciaga, dressed in a devil-like outfit while holding two red dolls.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Volkova, a Russian stylist, is not Balenciaga’s top designer, nor is she the woman in the photo, her agent confirmed to The Associated Press. The image actually shows a model in a 2016 China Fashion Week show for Sheguang Hu, a Chinese fashion designer and performance artist.
THE FACTS: After Balenciaga came under fire in recent days for two ad campaigns that were criticized for condoning the exploitation of children, social media users began sharing the gory image to further suggest that the brand is involved in sinister activities.
“This is the Chief Designer for Balenciaga, Lotta Volkova,” one tweet alleged along with the image. “Enough said. They knew exactly what they were doing.” It had received more than 19,000 likes and more than 6,000 shares as of Wednesday.
Another tweet making a similar claim received more than 66,000 likes and more than 31,000 shares.
But Julia Hackel, Volkova’s agent, told the AP that the woman in the photo is not Volkova.
“We can confirm that Lotta Volkova is not the person pictured in the mentioned image widely circulated on Twitter,” she wrote in an email.
Volkova is also not a top designer at Balenciaga. She has previously worked with the brand, but as a stylist — not a designer — according to Hackel, who added that Volkova has not worked with Balenciaga since 2018. A Balenciaga spokesperson further confirmed to the AP that Volkova has not worked with the brand since that year.
The original photo was taken by a Getty Images photographer in 2016. A caption for the image states that it shows a model during China Fashion Week in Beijing walking the runway for Sheguang, the Chinese fashion designer — not Balenciaga. Other similar images from Sheguang’s show appear on his Instagram account.
Balenciaga is being criticized for two separate ad campaigns. One, for its 2022 gift shop collection, featured children holding teddy bear-shaped bags dressed in what appeared to be bondage gear. The other, for its 2023 spring collection, included a photo featuring a partially-obscured document from United States v. Williams, a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that confirmed child pornography is not protected by the First Amendment.
Volkova was falsely accused of being involved in the campaigns after social media users shared screenshots of posts from her Instagram account showing imagery with violent and satanic themes. The account is currently set to private.
Hackel said that Volkova “in no way participated” in Balenciaga’s recent advertising campaigns.
“We would like to address the controversies surrounding our recent ad campaigns,” Balenciaga wrote in a statement posted to Instagram in response to the criticism. “We strongly condemn child abuse; it was never our intent to include it in our narrative. The two separate ad campaigns in question reflect a series of grievous errors for which Balenciaga takes responsibility.”
The brand called the gift shop campaign “a wrong choice by Balenciaga, combined with our failure in assessing and validating images.” In the case of the spring collection campaign, Balenciaga said that “all the items included in this shooting were provided by third parties that confirmed in writing that these props were fake documents.”
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
