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Dolce & Gabbana's co-founders on Friday called for China's "forgiveness", trying to save a crucial market for the luxury brand after a brutal reaction against its latest advertising campaign.
The Italian fashion house canceled a parade in Shanghai on Wednesday after celebrities and social media users threatened to boycott the campaign, which led e-commerce companies to remove items from Dolce & Gabbana on Thursday.
The deal is a setback for one of Italy's best-known fashion brands in China, where LVMH's Louis Vuitton rivals at Kering's Gucci seek to grow.
Chinese buyers account for more than a third of global spending on luxury items and increasingly shop at home rather than traveling abroad. Users have criticized the video campaign in which a Chinese woman has difficulty eating pizzas and pasta with chopsticks, while the narrator offers cooking lessons in a condescending tone.
The blunder was compounded by the online broadcast of screenshots of a private conversation on Instagram, in which the designer Stefano Gabbana refers to "China Ignorant Dirty Smelling Smelling Mafia" and uses the smiling emoji poo to describe the country. The company said that Gabbana's account had been hacked.
On Friday, in an apology video, Gabbana and co-founder Domenico Dolce said that they had "thought seriously" and that they were saddened by the impact of their remarks.
"Faced with our cultural incomprehension, we hope to be able to get your pardon," said Dolce, in Italian, in the video of the two designers sitting side by side.
The 85-second video with Chinese subtitles was posted on the Chinese Twitter platform, Weibo.
Gabbana also apologized and offered a formal apology to Chinese people around the world. The designers finished the video by apologizing in Mandarin. "We will never forget that experience and this lesson, and that kind of thing will never happen again."
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