Fashioning controversy How D&G upset the Chinese
TWO years ago Dolce & Gabbana launched three short videos on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, to promote a catwalk show.
A model struggles to eat pizza, spaghetti and cannoli. The voice-over pronounces words incorrectly on purpose, mocking Chinese speech. The subtitles also refer to chopsticks as “small-stick” things, which attracted a flurry of accusations of racism from locals.
Mere hours later, social media exchanges of Stefano Gabbana, the designer, calling China a “country of [five poop emojis] and “ignorant dirty smelling mafia” went viral. In response to the accusations, D&G said Gabbana’s Instagram account was hacked.
But it was too late, and the #boycottdolce hashtag had gone viral. Hundreds of Chinese actors and models withdrew from the company’s fashion show and Wang Junkai, a brand ambassador, dropped a deal with the Italian luxury firm.
E-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com removed D&G products, while shoppers rushed to return items bearing the brand’s label.
According to investment bank Jefferies, Chinese consumers will account for 47pc of the global luxury spend this year, leaving brands at their mercy.
Retail pundits agree that D&G never fully recovered from the furore unleashed by the “racist” ad.
Experts believe the cotton saga is not comparable to the D&G scandal, the latter of which remains deep in the minds of Chinese consumers.
In March, 205 top social media influencers mentioned D&G in their posts and among them, 125 compared the Xinjiang cotton saga to the D&G scandal.
However, many did not intentionally distance themselves from Burberry and continued to feature its clothes in their outfit-of-the-day posts without negative remarks from followers.