Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the co-founders of fashion company Dolce & Gabbana, have been under major scrutiny this month over a series of promotional ads they released that fans and critics deemed racist and offensive. This week, the duo issued an official apology video, in Chinese with subtitles, pleading for forgiveness.
The controversy began when the fashion brand posted a series of videos to its official Weibo page, which is a Chinese version of Twitter. In the ads, an Asian model attempts to use chopsticks to eat pizza and other Italian food. Many Chinese social media users called the videos racist and full of outdated stereotypes.
Immediately following, the hashtag #BoycottDolceGabbana was trending and promoted the designers to cancel their upcoming Shanghai fashion show. According to Fox News, backlash also came from multiple stores, including Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, who have stopped selling Dolce & Gabbana merchandise and even many Chinese e-commerce sites have removed their products.
In the apology video released online by D&G, both designers express their remorse for the ads and the outrage they have caused. Dolce said, “We have always been in love with China. We love your culture and we certainly have much to learn. That is why we are sorry if we made mistakes in the way we expressed ourselves.” Gabbana added, “We will never forget this experience, and it will certainly never happen again. From the bottom of our hearts, we ask for forgiveness.”
