Dolce & Gabbana took a big blow this month, after the company posted a series of ads to Weibo, the Chinese social media company. The ads outraged people across China and around the world; people were so angry at the commercials that the hashtag #BoycottDolceGabbana started to trend.
You can see the original ads below. They feature a woman, dressed in red, trying (and failing) to eat various Italian foods with chopsticks: a cannoli; a plate of spaghetti; a pizza. Dolce and Gabbana are both Italian. Consumers slammed the ad as “racist” and said that the ad, the model’s clothing, and the music all played to outdated stereotypes of China and Asia as a whole.
Here’s the original series of “racist” ads that Dolce & Gabbana put out on Weibo, aimed at Chinese consumers:
On Friday, Dolce & Gabbana Said They ‘Love China’ & Said They Were Sorry — in Chinese
Dolce & Gabbana waited a good while before making a formal apology to Chinese consumers. But on Friday, the team finally recorded a mea culpa, which they released on social media. The video features both Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. The two men are wearing black and sitting side by side at a long table. They speak, in serious, hushed tones, in Italian; there are subtitles in Chinese.
The two men say, “We have always been in love with China. 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.”
And they ad, “We will never forget this experience, and it will certainly never happen again,” Gabbana said, adding, “From the bottom of our hearts, we ask for forgiveness.”
Dolce & Gabbana conclude their apology by saying the word for “sorry” in Chinese.