The founders of Dolce & Gabbana have issued an apology after the massive outrage over a recent advertising campaign led to the postponement of their Shanghai fashion show.
The controversy began with a series of promotional videos, released by the luxury brand on social media, that feature an Asian model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks.
Screen captures appear to show a series of direct messages on Instagram in which Gabbana complains about criticisms of the videos.
“We have always been in love with China,” Dolce said in the video. “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.”
“We will never forget this experience and it will certainly never happen again,” Gabbana said. “From the bottom of our hearts, we ask for forgiveness.”
The duo then concluded by saying sorry in Chinese.
However, it is uncertain if this apology will stem the punishment and backlash doled out across China over the past week.
Numerous e-commerce sites including Alibaba and JD.com, the country’s two biggest platforms, removed the brand’s products.
As did Lane Crawford, a leading luxury department store in China, at least one duty-free shop and the US-based e-commerce site Net-a-Porter.
“Customers have been returning Dolce & Gabbana products to our stores. With respect to our customers, we have taken the decision to remove the brand from all stores in mainland China, online and in Hong Kong,” said ” Lane Crawford president Andrew Keith.
This is not the first time that the duo found themselves in hot water due to their loose tongues.
In 2015, in an interview for an Italian newspaper, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, who are both gay, expressed their opposition to a child growing with same-sex parents and referred to children born through IVF as “synthetic”.
Gabbana also bullied none other than Selena Gomez, who is the second most followed person on Instagram.
After the Italian Instagram account The Catwalk Italia posted photos of the singer on the red carpet, Gabbana left a nasty comment, which, translated from the Italian reads, “She’s really ugly.” A-listers such as Miley Cyrus came to Gomez’s defence while celebrity stylists such as Elizabeth Saltzman and Karla Welch announced that they would stop using the label’s clothes on their clients.
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