Dolce & Gabbana cancel show amid ‘racist’ row

Italian fashion label Dolce & Gabbana has cancelled a catwalk show in Shanghai following an outcry over an advertising campaign that many Chinese people said was racist.

The controversy began on Monday night when the label posted a video on the social media site Weibo showing a Chinese model attempting to use chopsticks to eat a pizza, a cannoli and spaghetti.

Weibo users accused the label of trivialising the country’s culture and depicting women in a racist way. The video was taken down within 24 hours, but it had already been shared widely on social media, where the hashtag #BoycottDolce began to circulate.

Guests have been informed the show is no longer taking place, and reports are circulating that the label was forced to cancel the event by local authorities. The label has been contacted for comment.

This is not the first time Dolce & Gabbana has been embroiled in a public outcry of this scale. In April 2017, the label published a campaign on Weibo depicting Beijing as an underdeveloped city. The post was deleted after complaints.

In 2015, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana came under fire for calling children born through in vitro fertilisation “synthetic”, adding that they opposed gay adoption and that IVF pregnancies were “chemical offsprings and rented uterus”. Dolce later apologised.