China pulls D&G goods after outrage over adverts

DOLCE And Gabbana goods have disappeared from Chinese e-commerce sites after remarks insulting to China that were apparently made by two of the firm’s Instagram accounts.

Searches for Dolce And Gabbana turned up no items on major online retailers such as Alibaba’s Tmall and JD.com.

The company has blamed hackers for the Instagram activity.

A duty-free shop at the Haikou Meilan airport on China’s Hainan island posted a photo of empty shelves on its social media account, saying that it had pulled all D&G products.

The moves after the three promotional videos made by the brand showed a Chinese woman using chopsticks to eat pizza and other Italian food.

Many in China called them racist and full of outdated stereotypes. The videos were previously deleted from the company’s account on Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter.

The move by the retailer came a day after several screenshots were circulated online showing co-founder Stefano Gabbana referring to China with crude terms and emoji as he defended promotional videos that had sparked controversy earlier.

The comments were made in a private message exchange with another Instagram user.

Separately, the Dolce And Gabbana account used offensive language in another exchange. However. the Italian fashion brand apologised and said both accounts had been hacked.

“We have nothing but respect for China and the people of China,” it said.