Dolce & Gabbana ask for forgiveness following accusations of racism
Dolce & Gabbanas founders have apologised and asked for forgiveness in a video published on Friday.
In case you missed what they apologised for, lets do a quick recap.
Earlier this week Dolce & Gabbana faced backlash for their campaign to promote a huge fashion show in Shanghai.
The #DGTheGreatShow campaign featured a series of videos showing an Asian woman trying to eat traditional Italian foods, such as cannoli, spaghetti, and pizza, with chopsticks.
Those videos prompted anger when posted on Weibo, Chinas biggest social media platform, with people accusing the campaign of relying on racial stereotypes. Critics pointed to the use of outdated cultural symbols such as lanterns in the background, the stereotypical styling of the model, and the depiction of an Asian woman as timid and giggling.
#BoycottDolce was mentioned on Weibo thousands of time as a result.
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Then things got worse.
Diet Prada shared screenshots of messages purported to be sent by Stefano Gabbana, apparently in response to accusations of racism.
Models and influencers announced that they would pull out of the brands show, scheduled to happen on Thursday.
Dolce & Gabbana then issued a statement claiming that the brands main Instagram account, and the account of Stefano Gabbana, had been hacked.
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The brand then announced that the show in Shanghai would not be going ahead as planned, writing on Instagram: What happened today was very unfortunate not only for us, but also for all the people who worked day and night to bring this event to life.
Now the brand has released a video of Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce asking for Chinas forgiveness and apologising in Mandarin. The video has been shared across Weibo.
Over the past few days we have thought long and hard with great sadness about everything that has happened and what we have caused in your country, they say in the video. And we are very sorry.
Our families have always taught us to respect the various cultures of the world, and this is why we want to ask for your forgiveness if we have made mistakes in interpreting yours.
We also want to apologise to all of the many Chinese people in the world. We take this apology very seriously as well as this message.
We have always been in love with China. Weve visited it and seen many of its cities.
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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.
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We will never forget this experience and it will certainly never happen again. In fact we will work to do things better.
We will respect the Chinese culture in every way possible.
From the bottom of our hearts we ask for forgiveness. Sorry.
In spite of the apology, the furore continues.
Under the Instagram post of the apology video the comments are still flooded with criticism.
Forgive not forget, they offended the whole Asian culture, they deserved to get lost in Asian markets, wrote one commenter. Therere many better choices and brands, and we dont want their Douchebag & Garbage.
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