Dolce & Gabbana’s Massive China Scandal, Balmain Officially Haute

Read today’s dose of chic intel right here…

Dolce & Gabbana’s Shanghai Show Cancelled Following Instagram Scandal

Dolce & Gabbana’s Shanghai show was cancelled by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Shanghai following a series of racist DMs sent from designer Stefano Gabbana’s personal Instagram account.

It all started a few days ago when, in anticipation of the Shanghai event, Dolce & Gabbana posted videos in what they called their “chopsticks eating” series. One of the videos showed a Chinese model wearing Dolce & Gabbana attempting unsuccessfully to eat an oversized cannoli with a pair of chopsticks. In the video, the model laughs at her own ineptitude as the voiceover makes thinly-veiled jokes about her not knowing how to handle something so big.

View this post on Instagram

#DGlovesChina ? More like #DGdesperateforthatChineseRMB lol.  In a bid to further appeal to luxury's covetable Chinese consumers, @dolcegabbana released some hella offensive “instructional” videos on the usage of chopsticks.  Pandering at it's finest, but taken up a notch by painting their target demographic as a tired and false stereotype of a people lacking refinement/culture to understand how to eat foreign foods and an over-the-top embellishment of cliché ambient music, comical pronunciations of foreign names/words, and Chinese subtitles (English added by us), which begs the question—who is this video actually for?  It attempts to target China, but instead mocks them with a parodied vision of what modern China is not…a gag for amusement. Dolce & Gabbana have already removed the videos from their Chinese social media channels, but not Instagram.  Stefano Gabbana has been on a much-needed social media cleanse (up until November 2nd), so maybe he kept himself busy by meddling with the marketing department for this series. Who wants to bet the XL cannoli “size” innuendos were his idea? Lmao. • #dolceandgabbana #altamoda #rtw #dgmillennials #stefanogabbana #shanghai #chinese #italian #cannoli #meme #wtf #dumb #lame #chopsticks #foodie #tutorial #cuisine #italianfood #asianmodel #asian #chinesefood #dietprada

A post shared by Diet Prada ™ (@diet_prada) on Nov 19, 2018 at 6:39am PST

The videos were criticized by many for being at best pandering and at worst racist and were soon removed from Dolce & Gabbana’s Chinese social media channels, according to Diet Prada, who first broke the story. As of this writing, however, the videos were still up on Stefano Gabbana’s personal Instagram account.

Then, last night, a series of inflammatory and racist DMs were sent from Stefano Gabbana’s Instagram account attacking people who had criticized him for the aforementioned videos. Diet Prada soon began posting screenshots of these interactions on their own account.

View this post on Instagram

As @dolcegabbana prepares to mount their next runway show in Shanghai this coming evening (7:30PM) and the rest of Instagram fawns over what’s sure to be an overly lavish “love letter” to China, we’ll be wondering if we’ll see chopsticks as hair ornaments, take-out boxes as purses, or even kimonos misappropriated as Chinese costume. Time will tell. For now, we’ll let y’all simmer on this DM between Stefano and Dieter @michaelatranova (chronology is reversed in slides). Word has it that they’re still in the process of model casting (over 200 Asian girls scheduled)…wouldn’t let them walk the show if we were their agents lol. Also, curious what the Chinese government will think of their country being called shit basically…especially considering how strict they are on who to allow to enter the country on work visas based on a thorough social media background checks. • #DGTheGreatShow #DGlovesChina #runway #fashionshow #cancelled #racism #dolceandgabbana #altamoda #rtw #dgmillennials #stefanogabbana #shanghai #chinese #china #wtf #dumb #lame #asianmodel #asian #dietprada

A post shared by Diet Prada ™ (@diet_prada) on Nov 20, 2018 at 7:05pm PST

Within a few hours the show had been cancelled and Stefano had taken to Instagram to say that his account had been hacked and that the statements were made by the hacker.

View this post on Instagram

My Instagram account has been hacked. My legal office is working on this. I love China and the Chinese Culture. I’m so sorry for what happened.

A post shared by stefanogabbana (@stefanogabbana) on Nov 20, 2018 at 9:00pm PST

Diet Prada quickly called BS on Gabbana’s claims, sharing numerous examples of the designer making similarly inflammatory and racist statements in the recent past.

This morning, Dolce & Gabbana released a statement apologizing for the situation. The statement was signed by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, but, interestingly, did not reassert Gabbana’s claims that hackers were to blame.

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 loves 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.

Diet Prada is now reporting that Gabbana is about to be ousted from the company as a result of this most recent scandal, although any statement to that effect has yet to be released by the company.

Balmain Has Officially Been Elected as a Guest Member for Couture Week (WWD)
Balmain has officially been elected a guest member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the governing body for haute couture designers. Creative director Olivier Rousteing revealed that the brand would stage its first couture show in 16 years last month. Other guests include Guo Pei, Iris van Herpen, Ralph & Russo, and Zuhair Murad, among others.

The Fourth Issue of Goop Magazine Is All About Gwyneth’s Wedding
Was Goop’s wedding post not enough of an inside scoop about Gwyneth Paltrow’s wedding? Do you need more details? Well the new issue of Goop Magazine is here to fill that void. The latest print edition also reflects on 10 years of Goop, as well as covering the holiday season. The issue will be available November 27.

(Goop)

Chaos Magazine Celebrates Mickey Mouse’s Birthday With Karl Lagerfeld and the Hadids
Chaos Magazine is helping Mickey Mouse celebrate his 90th birthday with some serious fashion power. There are six editions of the mag, featuring Gigi and Bella Hadid, Karen Elson, Shanelle Williams, Cara Taylor, and Vittoria Cerreti as cover stars. Additionally, Karl Lagerfeld and Virgil Abloh produced original artworks in honor of the famous Disney character. The issue will be available December 3.

Katy Perry Was This Year’s Highest-Paid Female Music Star (Forbes)
Katy Perry earned $83 million this past year, making her Forbes‘ highest earning female musician of 2018. She was closely followed by Taylor Swift ($80 million), Beyoncé ($60 million), Pink ($52 million), and Lady Gaga ($50 million). Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, and Celine Dion also made the list. It should be noted that Forbes measured earning made between June 2017 to June 2018, meaning that money made in the later half of 2018 (for example, Beyoncé’s On the Run II tour, or Rihanna’s latest Savage x Fenty collection) will be counted next year.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) on Oct 7, 2018 at 5:41pm PDT

Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on all the latest fashion news and juicy industry gossip.