Major players in China's fashion industry react to the Dolce & Gabbana debacle

Susie Bubble, Angelica Cheung and Estelle Chen are among the editors, influencers, models and actors who made comments
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Chloe Street22 November 2018

China’s biggest e-commerce platforms including Tmall, JD.com, Xiaohongshu and Secco have removed Dolce & Gabbana products from their sites and several of the country’s most powerful editors, influencers and celebrities have taken to social media to express everything from rage to deep disappointment.

The Italian fashion house, which blamed the remarks on a hacker, has been prompted to issue a second, longer public apology. However, for many of China’s fashion elite, it’s too little too late.

The brand’s second apology said: “Our dream was to bring to Shanghai a tribute event dedicated to China which tells our history and vision. It was not simply a fashion show, but something that we created especially with love and passion for China and all the people around the world who love Dolce & Gabbana. 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. From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to express our gratitude to our friends and guests. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.”

Here are some of the most notable responses:

Susie Bubble, Influencer

Instagram: 440k followers

“…The outrage here isn’t over the eyerollingly trite racism as displayed in the D&G promo videos depicting a model eating spaghetti with chopsticks. It’s so dumb I can’t even be bothered to expend energy on expressing anger towards it

“But rather this is yet another example of a misguided diva creative director in the upper echelons of the industry throwing his weight around and vomiting over social media in a reckless manner that impacts on a billion dollar company with thousands of employees as well as umpteen parts of the industry that would have been flown into Shanghai for what was supposed to be a media/celebrity fuelled extravaganza

“It makes a total mockery of an industry that is by and large full of hard working people that don’t grab headlines but are just making a living doing what they love

“It gives fuel to people who already think fashion is full of laughable airs and graces, and contributes little to society at large….”

Angelica Cheung, Editor in Chief, Vogue China

“As I have voiced time and again publicly and privately, western brands seeking to enter and expand in China should be aware of Chinese cultural sensibilities,” she said, as reported by WWD. “Instead of dictating everything from head office, they would gain a lot from listening to the opinions and insights of their Chinese teams.”

Zhang Ziyi, Actress

Weibo: 9,954,998 followers

“Self inflicted,” she wrote on Weibo, alongside a cartoon image which read “your s*** return it to you”.

Earlier, she had posted: “Starting today, Miss Zhang and her team will not buy and use any D&G products.”

Mr Kira, Influencer

Weibo: 2 million followers

“The created [videos] had a lot of unsuitable elements to it no matter if you meant it to be insulting or not," he said, as WWD reported. "You created a picture, a text, a video, which made a lot of Chinese feel uncomfortable after seeing it. That itself is a kind of disrespect to Chinese culture. Then what was revealed were extremely upsetting comments…I think no matter how you appear to be catering to the Chinese market, you’re looking down on China.”

Estelle Chen, Model, Victoria Secret Angel

Instagram: 159k followers

“Be sure that from now on, no one from China (and probably the whole world) will ever purchase anything from your brand. Sucks right? You thought you would make money by coming to China and by holding a show while being disrespectful and racist? You got it all wrong because we aren’t dumb when you say you love China. You don’t love China, you love money. China is rich yes but China is rich in its values, its culture and its people and they won’t spend a penny on a brand that does not respect that.”

Chu Wong, Model

Instagram: 17.6k followers

“Here [is] some Chinese culture I’d like to share. (YI ZI QIAN JIN) The meaning of these four words in Chinese is every single word that people have spoken is like a thousand heavy gold and you CANNOT take it back easily.”

Melvin Chua, Chinese luxury fashion events and PR guru. Owner, Ink Pak Communications

Instagram: 21.2k followers

“In my two decades of working in this industry here in China, I can truly say without a doubt, from day one, in each and every event, we as a community – production agencies, PR firms, hotels, transportation, security, catering, printers, photographers, video crews, florist, hair stylists, make up artists, models, model agencies, dressers, stylists etc. delivered world class results and services. And in many occasions surpassed anything internationally. Setting new gold standards. We as a collective community should take pride in that.”

He added, “It is our Positivity, our ‘Yes We Can’ attitude, our Work Ethic that defines us. Finally, let this be a lesson and a clear message to the international brand teams and powers that be. Respect, Listen, Engage with your local brand colleagues. Just because they are nice does not mean you can or should walk all over them. Their success is your successes. And events from the past few days clearly demonstrates the detriment in not doing so.”

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