GROSS: Balenciaga parent company CEO owns auction site selling sexually explicit child mannequins

AP Photo/Christophe Ena

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The deeper down the Balenciaga rabbit hole you go, the darker it gets.

After controversially featuring toddlers holding BDSM-inspired teddy bear purses in a recent ad campaign, the brand’s parent company, Kering, is taking heat because its CEO owns an auction site that sells child sex mannequins.

In a Tweet, conservative commentator Morgan Ariel shows examples of some of the disturbing art the site Christie's sells, including a piece called “F*CKFACE, a mannequin of a child with a penis for a nose and a butthole for a mouth.

Highly disturbing art work is being sold through a website owned by Balenciaga’s parent co. Kering.

The “art” is pedophilic and sadistic in nature showing children with penises and anus’ coming out of their faces. #Balenciaga #BalenciagaGroomers #balenciagagate #Burnbalenciaga pic.twitter.com/XLpHNEeL1U

— Morgan Ariel (@itsmorganariel) November 30, 2022

Although some people don’t think Kering's CEO, François-Henri Pinault, is to blame for his auction site selling pedophilic art, because, as Newsweek writes, “there is no evidence to suggest that Pinault would have had any input on the works in question,” many Twitter users disagree:

This is the kind of art the owner of #BalenciagaGate is selling through his auction service.

Google Jake and Dinos Chapman https://t.co/PAsv5jdF0p pic.twitter.com/6qx2XXyq2p

— Sam Parker 🇺🇲 (@SamParkerSenate) December 1, 2022

Major Update(1): Salma Hayeks husband owns #Balenciaga, Kering is a parent organization of Gucci and Balenciaga brands, lead by François-Henri Pinault, Chairman & CEO.

Everyone knows by now that Kering owns Balenciaga
However Did you know Majority is owned by.. Keep Reading 🐇🕳️ pic.twitter.com/kfFcEtvCtJ

— curioslight (@curioslight) November 29, 2022

The art, by Jake and Dinos Chapman, which sold for $189,610.04 CAD, somehow did not violate Instagram’s terms of service, and was posted on their now-deleted Instagram account, garnering over 1,000 likes.

According to Newsweek, the artists became popular in the 1990s for their provocative and sexually explicit work, including a pornographic film starring an “actress having sex with the severed head of an adult male mannequin,” which sold for over $1,300 in 2001.

Kering is the parent company to several luxury brands, including, Balenciaga, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Puma, Brioni and more.

François-Henri Pinault, who is married to Salma Hayak, has not yet responded to the controversy surrounding his auction site’s exploitative for-sale items.