Dolce & Gabbana in deep water as Chinese consumers reject its mis-judged advertising campaign

I wonder what founders of the Italian luxury fashion label Dolce & Gabbana are having for breakfast this morning.  By sunset on my first day of this current trip to Hong Kong, a popular shopping destination for Chinese mainland consumers, which is also seven hours ahead of Europe's time zone,  news was circling that the list of the world's online luxury goods retailers dropping products from Dolce & Gabbana is growing, joining the likes of Alibaba, Yoox Net-a-Porter, the Outnet and Yoox.

Sunset over the Victoria harbour in Hong Kong.  

Photos © Lucia Carpio

Even Lane Crawford, a luxury Hong Kong-based department store, has also announced they are pulling the Italian brand from its stores.  This is definitely bad news for the Italian label when Chinese consumers are spending billions of dollars shopping for luxury goods, much of it is on line.

The controversy started after Dolce & Gabbana's tongue in cheek advertising campaign featuring a Chinese lady struggling to eat pizza and spaghetti with chopsticks.  Despite the Italian label's issuing an apology on video by both its founders - Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana  - asking for forgiveness for the misunderstanding and both designers saying "sorry" in Mandarin, Chinese social media users heaped scorn on the apology, saying it lacked sincerity, noting that the video only posted to Weibo and that the Instagram advertisements had yet to be removed, according to a report in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (owned by Alibaba).

Dolce & Gabbana had to cancel  their Shanghai fashion show on Wednesday which was billed to be one of the brand's biggest ever events outside Italy.  It was also meant to be a high profile event with many top celebrities and actors booked to make their appearances.

While many will argue about the cultural attitudes and differences between China and Italy, the irony of this whole incident is that both countries have a lot in common, especially in the area of  food and fashion which are in the centre of their respective cultures.  Chinese people care very much about their attire and have a long history in fine tailoring, and the Italians are the same.  Culinary experts would point out that Chinese noodles and green onion dough cakes can find their similarity in pastas and pizzas.  But there's a fine line between drawing similarities and judging the mood of a prospective customer base.  The Italian brand should know better with its success in the global fashion market that it's best not to take anything for granted.  National pride and the growing power of the Chinese consumers cannot be underestimated.