They’re grinning and bearing it.
Two young fashionistas’ fake versions of Balenciaga’s controversial bondage bear handbags have become genuinely popular.
Paris-based Balenciaga — worn by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West — came under fire last November for ads showing two young girls holding stuffed animals dressed in what appeared to be bondage apparel. After an outcry, Balenciaga immediately removed the ad campaign and the plush bear bags never went on sale.
Influencer Menelik Demissie, 24, never forgot about the banned bags, though. Around the time of the Met Gala in May, he connected with Loik Gomez, the husband of Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia, over them.
“I really wanted the bondage bear toys. That was one of the items I was really excited about,” Demissie, a native of Ethiopia who moved to New York from Los Angeles in 2020, told The Post.
“I said, ‘If there’s anyway you can sneak me one let me know.’ He said, ‘Bro I can’t even get my own.’ He told me they’re treating this s—t like its drugs.” Gomez suggested he make the bags himself, so Demissie partnered with his friend Cole Tomko, 27, a Los Angeles-based designer, to do just that.
Tomko, who has worked with Kanye West’s Yeezy designers in the past, modeled the plush toys off of the real Balenciaga prototypes.
“I started with the base bunny bag and then added screen print ink that made them look dirty. I also added piercings with higher quality parts and a strap to make it look like a high end bag, but [with] a more worn in style,” he told The Post.
In August, they started selling them for $150 outside of a Biggie’s Bodega in downtown New York’s Dimes Square, and they quickly attracted attention.
When Rapper Doja Cat heard about the stunt she asked Demissie about the product. He gifted her one of the plush bags, and she posted with it in a on Instagram.
Madonna also caught wind of the trend. The singer requested a meeting — and took Demissie for dinner at Carbone.
“Her photographer and one of her right hand men is a big follower of me – he was a fan of what I was doing and he was showing Madonna some of my stuff. He’s always trying to tap into young upcoming people I guess. We talked about food, clothes, nothing crazy,” Demissie said of the January outing.
The banned bags aren’t the pair’s first foray into faux Balenciaga.
Earlier this summer, they printed the logo “Balencaiga.com” on hundreds of cheap white T-shirts and sold them for $40 a pop outside the vintage store Leisure Centre on The Lower East Side. Style fiends snatched up roughly 200 of the shirts.
“[It was] something so simple and we had a line of kids ready to buy it,” Tomko, who sources vintage designers and creates looks for his own label Ends Repair, recalled. “There were people … that thought it was Balenciaga.”
Tomko and Demissie had further fun by posting a fake cease-and-desist letter from Balenciaga on Instagram shortly after the T-shirt drop.
“We love to play with this level of mystery, irony and comedy where it’s like you don’t know what’s real and what’s not real,” Demissie said.
The influencer asserts that he is in no way affiliated with or compensated by Balenciaga, but he believes Gomez was “happy” they recreated the banned bear. Balenciaga did not immediately return a request for comment.
He is quick to note that his trendy fakes are about fashion — not economics.
“It’s more about the conversation than making money. We were trying to get content and controversy out,” he said.
