Stefano Gabbana has defended the company’s racist Chinese ‘chopsticks’ advert.
Dolce & Gabbana co-founder Stefano Gabbana has defended a racist Chinese ‘chopsticks’ advert.
In the advert titled ‘Eat with Your Chopsticks’ an Asian woman is seen struggling to eat Italian food including pasta, pizza and cannolis with traditional chopsticks. “Is it too huge for you?” asks the male narrator.
After the advert surfaced on the company’s Weibo and Instagram pages, social media users expressed their outrage, slamming the advert for being racist.
To make matters even worse, Stefano Gabbana not only defended the advert but ridiculed any concern over it.
Popular Instagram account Diet Prada confronted the fashion entrepreneur directly.
In response, Gabbana said, “if the Chinese feel offended by a girl who spells [sic] pizza or pasta with chopsticks means that those Chinese feel inferior… and then it’s a problem not ours!”
For some reason, Gabbana threw dog-eating into the conversation. “You are racist because you eat dogs?” He wrote.
In another message, the 56-year-old said, “the country of (poop emoji) is China,” and then wrote, “China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia.”
D&G then claimed that their Instagram account, as well as Gabbana’s account were hacked.
“Our Instagram has been hacked. So as the account of Stefano Gabbana. Our legal office is urgently investigating. We are very sorry for any distress caused by these unauthorized posts. We have nothing but respect for China and the people of China,” their statement on Instagram read.
D&G has since canceled its Shanghai Fashion Show, which was due to occur on 21 November.