As long as there is fashion, there will be controversies, and the latest scandal making headlines involves Italian luxury fashion house Dolce & Gabbana. Oh, when will they ever learn??
Just recently, D&G got caught up in wildfire for racism, so much so that the brand’s multi-million dollar Shanghai show in which was scheduled for 21 November 2018 got cancelled by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Shanghai.
Here’s how it all unfolded, which led to the cancellation of #DGTheGreatShow:
On November 17, D&G released a three-part campaign video on Instagram titled, “Eating with Chopsticks”. According to the founders, the three clips were meant to be a tribute to China. Evidently, it wasn’t long before the duo were accused of racism..
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqR4-DVi4wQ/
Supposedly intended to draw the appeal of more Chinese consumers, the “instructional” clips seemingly mock the Chinese culture and its tradition of using chopsticks. First of all, we don’t use chopsticks for everything. Also, no one is stupid enough to attempt to pick up a cannoli of that size with chopsticks. And the sexual “size” innuendos? Wow.
The obviously insulting campaign backfired horribly and the situation only worsened when a follower of Instagram fashion police Diet Prada DM’ed founder Stefano Gabbana to express her displeasure. Later on 21 November, D&G claimed that their Instagram accounts got hacked.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqbgvLinF1w/
At that point, no one believed them. According to Diet Prada, Stefano Gabbana even reposted the DM exchange (seen in the Instagram photo above) on his Instagram Stories before claiming he got hacked. This also angered multiple high-profile celebrities, actors and musicians, who then declared that they no longer want nothing to do with the brand.
The management of actress Zhang Ziyi released a statement declaring that the actress would not be attending the show and that neither she nor her team will be supporting the brand ever again. D&G’s longtime Asian ambassadors Wang Junkai and Dilraba Dilmurat also terminated their agreements with the brand. This followed with a full-on boycott.
Needless to say, the authorities got word of the racist comments made by D&G and subsequently made the final call to cancel the show altogether whilst the conventional backstage chaos with models, hair and makeup was already in session. Yikes! Will they ever recover from this humiliating spectacle??
