EXCLUSIVE: Balenciaga parent company Kering ignored an offer to partner with children’s foundation set up by Gucci heiress a YEAR before bondage bears and child porn scandal

• Alexandra Zarini, whose great grandfather founded Gucci, runs The Alexandra Gucci Children’s Foundation which combats child sexual abuse 
• Last October, her charity contacted The Kering Group – which owns both Balenciaga and Gucci – seeking partnership in the fashion industry
• She was turned down by Gucci, which complained over her use of her family name in the marketing materials for the foundation 
• She has had no involvement in the business since her family sold its trademark in the 1990s  
• Kering, which also owns Bottega Venetta, Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, ignored the offer 
• The company has also been silent on the Balenciaga scandal involving children 

A year before the Balenciaga scandal sent shockwaves through its parent company, The Kering Group, executives ignored an offer from Gucci heiress Alexandra Zarini to work together to prevent child sexual abuse in the industry, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Executives from Zarini’s charity emailed representatives of both Kering and Gucci last October, in the hope of creating a partnership to crackdown on social media images and the use of children in fashion campaigns. 

The Kering Group, run by Francois-Henri Pinault, is a French fashion powerhouse: it owns both Balenciaga and Gucci, along with Bottega Venetta, Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, and is worth 65billion euros. 

The company has not issued any statement on the Balenciaga scandal involving the use of bondage-styled bears in one photoshoot, and child porn legal documents in another. The second photoshoot also featured a book by a Belgian artist whose work depicts naked, castrated toddlers. 

Neither Zarini nor the Gucci family has had any business involvement with the fashion label since the 1990s, but she sought to partner with the brand founded by her great-grandfather. 

Gucci declined the offer and complained about her use of her family’s name in the marketing materials for the charity. The Kering Group’s executives did not respond to her requests. 

Francois-Henri Pinault, the CEO of The Kering Group, is pictured with wife Salma Hayek Pinault. The Kering Group has not commented on the Balenciaga scandal 

Alexandra Zarini, whose great grandfather Guccio founded the Gucci fashion house. She told DailyMail.com in an interview that her exchanges with The Kering Group demonstrated the ongoing need for more to be done in the industry to protect children 

On November 23 this year, after the Balenciaga scandal erupted, representatives from The Alexandra Gucci Children’s Foundation sent another offer of partnership. 

Again, the Kering Group’s reps chose not to respond.

‘My foundation had approached Kering and Gucci about this topic as a whole in 2021. 

‘I was really concerned as a survivor myself about the safety of children in the fashion industry but also of the safety of young girls. 

‘I was very concerned about children’s safety and the fact they’re exposed to these campaigns through social media. 

‘A global partnership for prevention of child sexual abuse was offered to Kering – they did not seem to see the need or any effort from their side,’ Alexandra told DailyMail.com in an interview.

Representatives for Kering did not respond to inquiries, but a Gucci spokesman told DailyMail.com the company turned down the offer because of the trademark dispute. 

‘In order to protect the distinctiveness of its proprietary trademarks Gucci was not in a position to enter into any form of collaboration,’ they said. 

Gucci’s corporate lawyers have repeatedly asked Zarini to stop using her family’s name to market her children’s protection charity, ‘so as not to create confusion in the public domain between the Foundation’s activities and the Gucci brand and its social impact and philanthropic activities.’ 

A source close to the situation said it would have been strange for the parent company to partner with Zarini, when it was engaged in a dispute over trademark. 

Zarini, however, saw it as an opportunity to work with the company to combat child sexual abuse in the fashion industry.

She was ‘disgusted’ by the Balenciaga campaign this month, which she says demonstrates her biggest concerns about using children in campaigns. 

‘I was completely outraged. I was devastated and disgusted by everything that I saw. I couldn’t believe that this was a campaign for Balenciaga. When I saw this I thought “this is just awful.”

‘It’s a major fashion label and it’s very closely related to my family name. It’s completely unacceptable.’ 

Zarini is currently embroiled in litigation with her own mother and grandmother over her allegations that they failed to prevent her stepfather, Joseph Ruffalo, from sexually abusing her from the age of six until she was 22. Patricia and her mother do not contest Alexandra’s claim that she was abused, however they say they were unaware of it at the time and therefore unable to prevent it.

Her own experience as the victim of abuse fuels her desire to protect children now. 

The Kering Group owns both Balenciaga and Gucci along with Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen 

The Balenciaga gifting campaign which showed young child models posing with BDSM-styled bears on a set that was staged to look like a party

Outrage: There is continued anger over Balenciaga’s campaigns. Actress Anna Lynne McCord leads  a protest outside the Rodeo Drive store earlier this month

‘The silence we’re now seeing from the fashion industry on the Balenciaga campaign in general, with almost nobody speaking up, about how wrong this is, hardly anybody anyway, it has so many similarities to my own story personally and so many survivors. 

‘In every case there’s at least one or some adults or entities that chose to look away. In my case, it was my family.’ 

Balenciaga’s creative director Demna is being allowed to continue on in the role despite growing outrage over its use of children in a bondage-styled shoot

She believes the Balenciaga scandal – and the brand’s response to it – highlights a widespread problem within an industry that emerged relatively unscathed from the #MeToo era, and which has sailed past major boycotts. 

‘The fashion industry has a long history of sexual abuse with young women, young girls and children and this problem has never been addressed.

‘When you look at the campaigns over the last few years, this exploitation of children has continued to grow and it’s just getting more.

‘There’s a desire to take things one step further every time to shock and make headlines. I definitely think the response has been throwing it on someone else. It’s almost gaslighting and minimizing it.’ 

She does not, however, believe that boycotting the brand would solve the problem. 

‘I don’t think cutting ties with the brand is necessarily the right move because this is really the opportunity to make the biggest change in history when it comes to the protection of children in the fashion industry.

‘We have to get away from this idea of “what’s the best marketing idea” and “what’s the best campaign”  we need to think about what we can do now so in a few years from now we can look back and say we made a change. 

‘The reality is, this is literally 20 or 30 years too late. We have to bring change.’ 

Alexandra is suing her mother, Patricia Gucci (shown right with her father, Alexandra’s grandfather Aldo Gucci) for negligence. She alleges that her mother failed to prevent her from being sexually abused by her stepfather for years as a child

The Alexandra Gucci Children’s Foundation works to prevent child sexual abuse 

‘No stone should be left unturned at Kering – no creative, no executive, nobody should be allowed to remain in these firms if they believe these photoshoots are the right thing to do,’ she said. 

The company is allowing creative director Demna, who signs off on all shoots, to remain in his position. 

He apologized last week after weeks of silence, and vowed to do more to work with children’s charities. 

The Alexandra Gucci Children’s Foundation has not heard from the Kering Group or Balenciaga since the scandal erupted. 

Kering has its own foundation – The Kering Foundation – which works against violence towards women. Gucci, as a business, is a partner of UNICEF. 

Alexandra, who lives in Los Angeles with her family, is looking for partners in the industry to work with to prevent any further damage.

She had hoped to start with the brand that bears her family’s name. 

Balenciaga has apologized for the photoshoot and promised to work with children’s rights’ groups to do better in the future, but has not fired or suspended any of those involved in the photoshoot. 

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