If you haven’t already heard, Dolce & Gabbana is currently in the midst if a PR nightmare, with all fingers pointed at the Italian brand’s namesake co-founder, Stefano Gabbana.
From shows being cancelled, to the designers being pulled from leading retailers, here’s a crash-course guide to everything you need to know about the D&G scandal.
[jwplayer MA93xzF7]
It all started when D&G was accused of racism in this incredibly questionable (and now deleted) three-part campaign promoting their upcoming Shanghai show.
The clips, titled ‘Eating With Chopsticks’, shows an Asian model struggling to eat cannoli, pizza and spaghetti with chopsticks:
The campaign copped a load of flack from Chinese online platform Weibo for perpetuating harmful stereotypes, leading to its subsequent removal.
Following the backlash, it’s reported Stefano then engaged in a slew of racist slurs over Instagram, directed at critics of the campaign.
Then, self-appointed fashion whistleblower @DietPrada started sharing screenshots of the alleged exchanges on Instagram, including lines like “China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia” and “eat dogs bitch im blocking you”:
Stefano’s Instagram account also shared a screenshot of one exchange on his Stories:
Following the heated turn of events on Instagram, Dolce & Gabbana went straight into damage control, by claiming both the brand and Stefano’s Instagram account had been hacked.
“Our Instagram has been hacked. So as the account of Stefano Gabbana,” the label posted on their grid.
“Our legal office is urgently investigating. We are very sorry for any distress caused by these unauthorized posts. We have nothing but respect for China and the people of China.”
Stefano also uploaded a (now-deleted) Instagram post, showing a screenshot of an alleged exchange captioned:
“My Instagram account has been hacked. My legal office is working on this. I love Chine and the Chinese Culture. I’m so sorry for what happened.”
@DietPrada then started sharing pictures of 200 workers abandoning the Shanghai show, with reports D&G will “relaunch” the brand without Stefano:
Shortly after, news broke that ‘The Great Show’ was been officially cancelled by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Shanghai:
Stefano and his business partner, Domenico Dolce, have since issued a public apology, asking for forgiveness:
The brand also issued a second apology statement on its feed, which reads:
“Our dream was to bring to Shanghai a tribute event dedicated to China which tells our history and vision. It was not simply a fashion show, but something that we created especially with love and passion for China and all the people around the world who loves Dolce & Gabbana.”
After the brand’s reputation was dragged through the shitter, now online retailing monolith the Yoox Net-A-Porter Group just announced they’re dropping Dolce & Gabbana from all it’s Chinese platforms. The Yoox Net-A-Porter ground follows in the footsteps of a tonne of other e-retailers such as Alibaba, JD, Secoo, VIPshop and Netease.
In the aftermath, WWD reports that a number of social media platforms, especially those based in China, have been swarmed with footage of people burning and shredding their D&G clothes.
More news as it comes.
