A Dolce & Gabbana fashion show which was due to take place this week in Shanghai has been cancelled after the brand faced uproar over a “racist” ad which seemed to mock Chinese culture.
The high fashion brand found itself facing claims of racism for producing the ad, which features an Asian model attempting unsuccessfully to eat traditional Italian food with chopsticks.
The offending ad, which was posted to D&G’s Instagram account in three parts, shows the Chinese woman wearing the brand’s clothing and nervously laughing while trying to use chopsticks to eat pizza, spaghetti and a large cannoli. A male voiceover repeatedly suggests that the cannoli is “too big” for her to handle, prompting one Instagram commenter to write that the “offensive sexual innuendos are blatant.”
The Italian brand was intending to humorously promote its new ‘D&G Loves China’ campaign, but judging by the swift critical reaction on social media, its efforts did not go down well, resulting in the cancellation of the upcoming catwalk show as the #BoycottDolce hashtag took off.
Matters had been made worse when the official Instagram accounts for Dolce & Gabbana and frontman Stefano Gabbana himself posted derogatory comments about Chinese culture on Wednesday – the day the catwalk show was scheduled to take place.
