Recently during the preparation of the Shanghai brand show at 8:00 pm on November 21, 2018, China, the Italian luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana was exposed by a netizen. It was revealed that one of its founders and designer – Stefano Gabbana – allegedly posted an insult to China on social networking site Instagram.
It is reported that the cause of the incident was due to several advertisements published by Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) on social media. These advertisements, which combine Chinese traditional culture with Italian classic cuisine, are entitled “Chopsticks for Eating” (currently these three advertisements have been deleted).
The model shows how to use Chinese chopsticks to eat pizza, Italian sweet rolls and more. However, chopsticks are called “small stick-shaped cutlery” in the advertisements and at the same time, the “Chinese pronunciation” used in the videos, the arrogant tone and the strange posture of the model is questionable.
After the advertisement was published on social media, it was later criticised by a netizen (London’s model and fashion business school Asian student Michaela Phuong Thanh Tranova), which led to Stefano Gabbana – one of the founders and designers of Dolce & Gabbana – to start an argument. He was angered, screamed and he publicly insulted China in the process adding that he was not afraid of being exposed.
Dolce&Gabbana’s flagrant insults and arrogant attitude directly led to the Chinese model’s refusal to perform in Dolce & Gabbana’s ‘The Great Show’ show at the Shanghai World Expo Center on November 21, 2018.
Many Chinese stars have boycotted it and it is reported that Chinese stars Li Bingbing, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Kun, Karry Wang/Wang Junkai, Dilraba, Kwin/Mu Ziyang, Liang Jingkang and Rocket Girls 101 who were going to attend the after party dinner have decided not to attend the brand show. Vogue China editor Zhang Yu also returned directly to Beijing, not attending the big show that night.
Due to the insulting slurs by Stefano Gabbana, one of the founders and designer of the brand Dolce & Gabbana, the Chinese side cooperated with the brand spokesperson: Dilraba, Karry Wang/Wang Junkai and other co-stars all sent letters to the Dolce & Gabbana brand terminating cooperation with the Dolce & Gabbana brand from that date and a statement to end the partnership.
At present, all e-commerce platforms in China have removed all Dolce & Gabbana brand related products and content, including Tmall, Jingdong, Netease koala, Xiaohongshu and “Xianyu” as well as Taobao and other e-commerce platforms, many overseas purchasing D&G brand stores said that orders will not be accepted.
For this incident, on November 21, 2018, the official account of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of the People’s Republic of China issued a statement on the matter: “We welcome foreign companies to invest in China, and foreign companies operating in China, and they should respect China and respect Chinese. This is also the minimum compliance of any enterprise to invest in other countries.”
On November 22, 2018, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said in response to a reporter’s inquiry about Dolce & Gabbana’s storm that “China does not want this matter to rise to diplomatic issues, but the outside world should understand how the Chinese people view this issue”.
Finally, what the editor wants to say is that the dignity of every country and every citizen in our world cannot be violated or be blatantly insulted. There is a famous saying in China: “Respecting others means respecting yourself”.
