Dolce & Gabbana issues apology for racist ads, after denying responsibility for aggressive direct messages

Dolce & Gabbana has issued an apology for offending the Chinese people.

The major fashion brand released a video of the designers Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce on social media channels Friday, Nov. 23. In the video, Gabbana and Dolce take turns expressing their regret for insulting the country.

“Over the past few days we have thought long and hard with great sadness about everything that has happened and what we have caused in your country, and we are very sorry,” Dolce begins.

“We take this apology very seriously, as well as this message,” Gabbana adds.

“We’ve always been very crazy about China, we’ve visited it a lot. We’ve been to many cities,” Dolce gushes. “We love your culture and we certainly have much to learn.”

Gabbana promises that he and Dolce will work to do things better in the future. “We will respect the Chinese culture in every way possible,” he says before asking for forgiveness “from the bottom of our hearts.”

Then they both say “Sorry” in Mandarin.

The apology comes a few days after the brand launched ads in China that rubbed people the wrong way. There were videos featuring a Chinese woman struggling to eat pizza and other Italian foods with chopsticks and images showing Asian people eating pasta with their hands while others were using utensils.

As the videos got more attention on Chinese social media, more people, including celebrities, turned their backs on the brand, calling the ads racist and “hella offensive.” The actress Zhang Ziyi posted on her official Weibo account that she and her team “will not buy and use any D&G products.” Singer Wang Junkai along with actors Li Bingbing, Chen Kun, Dilraba and the girl band Rocket Girls 101 also denounced Dolce & Gabbana. Chinese actor-singer Huang Xiaoming wrote on his official Weibo account, “The motherland is first.”

When Instagrammer Michaela Tranova messaged Gabbana on Instagram about the ads, his response only made matters worse. Tranova shared screenshots of their conversation in which it appears that Gabbana referred to the country of China as five poop emojis, and the “China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Mafia.”

Because of these comments and ads, the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Shanghai canceled Dolce & Gabbana’s Nov. 21 show, which Vogue said “was supposed to be the biggest fashion show in Dolce & Gabbana’s 33-year history—a 300-plus look, 140-performer, one-hour ode to China watched by a 1,400-strong audience crowded with local celebrities and influencers.”

So the company released an apology. But many aren’t buying it, and they’re taking to social media to demand more.

They’re also expressing their confusion. Gabbana and the brand originally claimed his account had been hacked, meaning that he hadn’t sent those messages to Tranova. But the video makes it seem as if Gabbana is taking responsibility for what he said, as well as for the ads. Especially when Dolce says, “we are sorry if we made mistakes in the way we expressed ourselves.”