The Italian house Dolce & Gabbana (D&G), founded in 1985 by Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, is currently drawing huge flak due to their controversial advertisement which they came up with. The fashion house initially posted a video on China’s social network Weibo showing a Chinese model trying to eat pizza, cannoli and spaghetti using chopsticks, which caused uproar online and was removed within 24 hours. However, the damage was done and hashtag #BoycottDolce starting to trend.
The campaign had been criticized for "trivialising China's centuries-old culture and depicting Chinese women in a stereotypical and even racist way" by users on social media. When D&G started receiving hate comments and flak for their 'racist' content, the fashion house tried covering up by coming up with hashtags like #DGLovesChina and #DGTheGreatShow.
However, this didn’t seem to go down well with the Chinese as the popular Instagram account Diet Prada, known and feared in fashion fraternity for calling out copycats and discrepancies in the style word, leaked controversial chats with Stefano Gabbana where he called China 'shitty'. Screen captures appear to show a series of direct messages on Instagram in which Gabbana complains about criticisms of the videos. Stefano covered the entire thing by saying that their Instagram account was hacked but his try went in vain as no one believed him.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqbgvLinF1w/?utm_source=ig_embed
This affected the famous Dolce & Gabbana show which was going to take place in Shanghai, China.
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Diet Prada's chat with Dolce & Gabbana co-founder Stefano Gabbana[/caption]
Later on, Bentley Modelling Agency revealed that 24 models dropped out and left the show. In addition to that, popular Chinese celebrities revolted back with calling D&G - ‘SHIT’. The most awaited Shanghai show was then cancelled. The preparations had already begun and approximately 200 people had flown to the city for the big show. After the Chinese were raged about the whole controversy, the news reached to the police.
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Diet Prada's Instagram story[/caption]
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bqbupq4lKng/
Diet Prada further revealed that the 200 people working on the show were held and couldn’t leave the country. Not just that, their passports were also seized. The employees had to go through so much for working for a show which they couldn't even call theirs.
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Dolce & Gabbana Shanghai show's backstage[/caption]
Following that, Dolce & Gabbana finally released a statement which said that the show was a tribute to China and they were actually going to express gratitude. The brand still did not issue an apology which they obviously owed to China for their racist advertisement and later calling the county shitty. There are also rumours that Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce could be with the police right now.
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Dolce & Gabbana's statement[/caption]
Pop star Karry Wang, an Asia-Pacific brand ambassador for Dolce & Gabbana, announced late on Wednesday she would terminate all cooperation with the brand.
https://twitter.com/dolcegabbana/status/876057853890637824?lang=en
The upset Chinese people later started posting pictures and videos of them burning their D&G products and throwing it in the trash.
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A Chinese's post burning D&B shoes[/caption]
Well, the controversy does not end here; there are rumours that Dolce & Gabbana will relaunch their brand with only Domenico Dolce on board. Looks like we will have to wait and watch to see if that will work!
Dolce & Gabbana has 44 boutiques in China, including four in Shanghai, having entered the Chinese market in Hangzhou in 2005. It is not the first time the brand has been caught up in a scandal for using stereotypes. In 2015, the designers were criticized for calling children born through IVF “synthetic”, while in 2017 it published a campaign criticized for depicting Beijing as an underdeveloped city, and was forced to delete the post.
