D&G draws flak, cancels show after insensitive remarks
Print Edition
DOLCE & Gabbana has done it again.
After a controversy last year for showing the grungy side of Chinese life in its advertisements, the Italian fashion house kicked up a storm again with its latest adverts.
It was followed by racist and derogatory comments by one of the founders of the group that sparked an online uproar, and leading to the cancelation of its star-studded show in Shanghai last night.
To promote the event, D&G had launched a campaign on Instagram hashtagged by DGTheGreatShow. Three videos with the tag #DGLovesChina was released on both Instagram and Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. In the videos, a Chinese-looking woman is being told how to use chopsticks to have Italian food.
A voiceover in Chinese that many users slammed as “condescending” and “patronizing,” tells the model how to “use this stick-shaped cutlery to eat your great traditional Pizza Margherita.”
The dress of the woman and the use of Chinese cultural symbols like the lanterns were also criticized as stereotypical and out of date.
The videos were removed from Weibo but remained on its official Instagram account.
Soon after, Michaela Phuong Thanh Tranova, a business student in London, posted screenshots on Instagram of messages reportedly by Stefano Gabbana, one of the founders of the luxury brand.
The message says the videos were “deleted from Chinese social media because my office is stupid as the superiority of the Chinese.”
“And from now on in all the interviews that I will do international I will say that the country of shit (emojis) is China ... China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia.”
The screenshots were widely reposted on the Chinese social media. The company later claimed on its social media account, as well as Gabbana’s personal Instagram account, that they were hacked.
“Our legal office is urgently investigating,” the company said on Instagram. “We are very sorry for any distress caused by these unauthorized posts, comments and direct messages.
“We have nothing but respect for China and the people of China.”
But the harm was done.
At 4:48pm yesterday, D&G announced on its Weibo account that The Great Show, scheduled for last night, was rescheduled for another day.
Chinese celebrities quickly withdrew from the glamorous event. Showbiz stars Huang Xiaoming, Zhang Ziyi, Li Bingbing and Wang Junkai pulled out of the show.
Zhang, who starred in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” went a step further saying she would never purchase or use any D&G product. Li told her 42 million fans on Weibo: “I love my mother country.”
By 7pm, the giant display promoting The Great Show at the Shanghai Expo Center was taken down.
Last year, Morelli Brothers shot a series of photos tagged DGLovesChina that were deemed culturally insensitive.
In the photos, the models were shown posing in hutongs and Tian’anmen Square in Beijing, wearing fancy gowns and garish shirts, and standing next to ordinary Chinese such as taxi drivers and deliverymen.
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