THE DEVASTATING PR FAIL OF D&G

Dolce and Gabbana is one of the world’s renowned luxury fashion brands. The brand is known to produce high-end luxury clothing for women, men and children along with accessories, jewellery, sunglasses, perfume and make-up. The brand draws inspiration from the founders’ Mediterranean heritage mainly Sicily, Italy. They also draw inspiration from post-war 

neo-realist filmography. The brand evokes images of traditional Italian style with modern elements sometimes even traversing into the territory of irreverence to traditions. It is known to be a contemporary brand that is an expression of the changing world that takes inspiration into the past and project it into the future. The words that come to mind when one thinks of D&G are Mediterranean, strong woman, confident man, family, Sicilian and romantic.

While on paper the brand has everything going for it, it also has multiple instances of bad publicity, controversies and negative perceptions, some involving the founder, Stephano Gabbana, which has left customers with a bad taste in the mouth and with some re-thinking purchasing items from the brand or all together boycotting the brand. The brand has a long history of sexist, racist and offensive gaffes ranging from S/S 2007 advert with a female model on the floor in a swimsuit being restrained while a number of male shirtless models are looking over her glamourising non-consensual sex and male power over women to Blackamoor earrings on the runway to releasing a product called the ‘slave sandal’. The founder Gabbana has also been criticised for his remarks on same-sex parenthood, IVF and suggesting IVF children to be “synthetic”. This was not the only instance where Gabbana has voiced his opinions causing a negative PR coverage, when a sneaker featuring the slogan “I am thin and gorgeous” was criticised for perpetuating bulimia and anorexia, he is said to have responded by saying “Darling, you prefer to be fat and full of cholesterol? I think you have a problem.” Multiple instances of problematic behaviour and also the fact that the brand has one of the lowest sustainability ratings has affected the brand. 

One of the biggest PR fails the brand had was in 2018. In November 2018, Dolce & Gabbana was prepping for a huge East meets West fashion show announcing their new store in Shanghai. Days before the fashion show, they released an ad called ‘D&G Loves China’ depicting a Chinese woman adorned in luscious D&G attire trying to eat three traditional Italian foods like pizza, spaghetti and cannoli with chopsticks, but failing and embarrassing herself. The accompanying commentary was sexist and teasing her that the cannoli was too big for her. On its release, social media reactions came swiftly and were not happy. Chinese consumers were offended and the advert received thousands of messages criticising the brand. The strong reaction caused the celebrities and models to pull out of the show. Chinese platforms removed D&G from their websites. When an associate of the watchdog Instagram account DietPrada was texting the founder, he doubled down and claimed that the Chinese customers did not understand the brand, this prompted DietPrada to post the conversation on social media. The public opinion of D&G dropped and many vowed to boycott the brand. 

For rehabilitation, the brand took down their videos on Chinese social media platforms. Initially the brand maintained that the founder’s account on Instagram was hacked and the messages were not sent by him, but owing to his previous comments, the court of public opinion was not pacified. The founders issued a video apology five days later which was criticised as not being genuine. 

The incident turned out to be devastating for the brand in the Chinese market. The time from the event explosion to arousing the Chinese’s anger was extremely short. This is a lesson for global brands to research the market and respect other cultures. For D&G the road to get back on track has been long and arduous, especially in the Chinese market. It took the brand nearly a year and a half to recover from the incident. D&G has to work on its positive image in the market, not just in China but globally.