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The reaction against the Italian luxury fashion brand began earlier this week after the launch of video commercials featuring a Chinese woman struggling to eat pizza and other Italian dishes with chopsticks. The situation was further aggravated by offensive comments allegedly sent by Stefano Gabbana's personal Instagram account.
The fashion house is now desperately trying to limit the fallout. On Friday, Gabbana and co-founder Domenico Dolce appeared in a video message posted on social media to apologize to "all Chinese people around the world".
"Our families taught us to respect all the cultures of the world," said Dolce. "We hope to receive your forgiveness for our cultural misunderstandings."
The company apologized previously and also stated that the offending messages sent from Gabbana's Instagram account were the result of hackers. But that has not stopped the reaction so far.
Yank products retailers D & G products
The e-commerce company Yangmatou said in a Wednesday article on social media that it had withdrawn 58,000 D & G products, claiming that "the homeland is more important than anything else".
Lane Crawford, a Hong Kong-based fashion retailer with multiple outlets in mainland China, announced Friday the stopping of sales of the Italian brand's products in stores and online after customers started selling return them.
"We believe that brands need to be aware of the cultural implications of their actions and understand the potential backlash when customers feel their values have not been met," Lane Crawford said in a statement.
The pages for D & G products on the commercial sites operated by Alibaba and JD.com were removed and the brand's products were not included in the site searches. Alibaba and JD.com have not responded to requests for comment.
D & G products were also not available on any other online retail sites in China, including those of Yoox Net-A-Porter. A spokeswoman for Yoox Net-A-Porter acknowledged Friday that the brand's products were not available at the company's Chinese sites, but declined to comment further.
"I do not think anyone will touch them"
Analysts have warned that D & G's excuses may not be enough to prevent a sharp drop in sales in the world's second-largest economy.
"The damage to the brand in the eyes of Chinese consumers has already been caused," said Ben Cavender, senior analyst at China Market Research in Shanghai.
On social networks, people posted videos of themselves burning the clothes of the brand or cutting them into pieces and using them to wash their toilets.
Cavender suggested that another risk is that shopping centers in China choose to start closing D & G stores.
Hung Huang, a leading Chinese fashion commentator and magazine publisher, said that the Italian brand's use of celebrities to help market its products may run into difficulties.
"I do not think anyone will touch them," she told CNN.
"China has a very patriotic tendency at the moment and so it will be very difficult to get support," she said.
But Hu Xijin, editor of the Chinese nationalist tabloid Global Times, wrote in a social media article that D & G should not be too harshly penalized because of the incident.
He argued that China should be more tolerant to show the world that it was an open market.
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