The scripted video was met with little forgiveness, and pledges to not forget. The video finished with the duo saying “Sorry” in Chinese. From the bottom of our hearts, we ask for forgiveness,” Gabbana said. We will respect the Chinese culture in every way possible. “We will never forget this experience and it will certainly never happen again. In matching black turtlenecks, the pair read a statement. Over the course of a minute and 25 seconds and one wide shot, Dolce and Gabbana sat in front of a red, baroque-patterned wall. There was one major Dolce endorsement, though- Melania Trump, a noted fan, wore a high-necked black lace dress from the line’s 2016 collection to Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago.īy Black Friday, the creative team that so often feeds off of their outbursts released an apology video. Lucky Blue Smith, an American model, also pulled out from the show in solidarity with Asian members of the cast. China is rich yes but China is rich in its values, its culture, and its people and they won't spend a penny on a brand that does not respect that.” In an Instagram post addressed to the founders, Estelle Chen, a French model who was cast in the show, wrote: "You don't love China, you love money. The main issue is calling the entire country a pile of shit and unfairly stereotyping and extrapolating.” “I wasn't initially offended by the ads, and no one really thinks that is the main issue. “My initial reaction was that this is 100 percent something Stefano would say,” said Timothy Parent, a creative consultant based in Shanghai. (Dolce & Gabbana did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.)
Gabbana’s PR team would report that his account had been hacked, a claim many do not believe. Perhaps the controversy would have died down, save for the fact that the Instagram account Diet Prada posted screenshots of Gabbana equating Chinese culture to the poop emoji, calling those who were offended “inferior,” and suggesting that Chinese people “ eat dogs.” It would not be the first or last time a Western brand capitalized off of exoticism. “Seriously what’s wrong with their marketing team, do they live in 1908?” one Twitter user wrote. The clip earned immediate international condemnation, with many calling the ad lazy, stereotypical, and downright racist. (Over the scene, a male narrator leeringly asks of the dessert, “Is it too huge for you?”) On November 21, Dolce & Gabbana posted a video to Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform, showing an Asian model attempting to eat pizza, spaghetti, and a cannoli with chopsticks. So the label’s choreographed foray into China’s social media sphere was strategic-save for one crucial, glaringly obvious misstep. “I’d say there are two groups of luxury consumers in China: those who identify with the brands or designers, and those who acquire luxury items as identity or status symbols,” said Jianhua Zhao, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Louisville and author of The Chinese Fashion Industry: An Ethnographic Approach.ĭolce, known for form-fitting, screen siren-esque designs that are promoted by the likes of Emily Ratajkowski, Scarlett Johansson, and Emilia Clarke, falls into the latter category. (To compare, US customers coughed up $112 billion.) The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese shoppers spent $9 trillion on such transactions in 2016. The Chinese luxury market is worth an estimated $7 billion annually, with most of those sales driven by mobile payment apps.
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