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Actually, things are going pretty well for Dolce & Gabbana.

Actresses Catherina Zeta-Jones and Angela Basset as well as presenter Amy Poehler wore outfits from the label at the Golden Globes a week ago.

During the pandemic, it excelled as a generous supporter of Italian institutes doing research on Covid-19 treatments.

And between December and January, the brand from Milan and its fashion were featured on seven international magazine covers.

Too bad that Dolce & Gabbana not only invests a lot of time and work in working with its friends, but also in fighting its enemies.

Last week, the notorious social media profile Diet Prada, which positions itself as the watchdog and digital pillory of the fashion industry, revealed that it was in a legal dispute with Dolce & Gabbana.

The reason: In 2018, the label fell out of favor when it published a campaign video on the occasion of a fashion show in China in which a Chinese model was shown eating clumsy spaghetti with chopsticks.

The clip was criticized on social media for being racist and culturally insensitive, but even more anger aroused comments from designer Stefano Gabbana, who allegedly made racist comments in private social media messages he wrote and described China as "shitty country".

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The news snippets were published and shared by the Diet Prada account, who also condemned the video, incited his followers against the label and fought a digital mud fight with Stefano Gabbana.

While Dolce & Gabbana claimed on the one hand that the Gabbanas account had been hacked and the news did not come from him, the designers publicly apologized in a video to their Chinese customers and fans.

As it has only now been found, the label filed a lawsuit against the bloggers just a few months after the apology video was released.

The brand is demanding more than 500 million euros in damages for the economic damage caused by Diet Prada.

In the Asian region in particular, the label has demonstrably lost sales between 2018 and 2019 after the show was canceled, Chinese stars distanced themselves from the brand and some stores stopped selling Dolce & Gabbana fashion in China.

The problem: With a lawsuit against the unloved Instagram critics, you risk undoing the hard work that has already been done for a reconciliation with the Asian audience.

Because in fashion it has been shown time and time again that those who behave calmly and observe a few rules of conduct can recover from shame and shitstorms over time.

And earn money again.

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And that's exactly what happened with Dolce & Gabbana.

After the drama, the brand focused on the topics of Italian craftsmanship and high-quality tailoring with its communication strategies, Stefano Gabbana finally deactivated his Instagram account and a new boss for the VIP area maintained good relationships with Hollywood's stylists who were around the label because of the controversy had long made a wide berth.

In 2019 and 2020, the company even took part in an important Chinese trade fair again.

The lawsuit against Diet Prada is not a new development, it has only now been made public by the defendants - probably also because the pressure against the independent digital platform, which has to defend itself against a billion-dollar company without a large financial cushion, is very great has been.

Diet Prada has now called on its followers to donate, more than 40,000 US dollars have already come out.

The fact that people of Asian origin are currently exposed to particularly frequent racist attacks gives even more weight to the arguments of the two founders, who see themselves as defenders of tolerance and diversity in fashion.

Against the background, it seems difficult to understand why the label is holding on to a lawsuit against Diet Prada, especially since it questions the sincerity of an apology if one is going to court in the background against those who have called for this apology.

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At the same time, one has to note the tenacity with which Diet Prada has attacked Dolce & Gabbana for years, criticized the designers' sympathy for the ex-first lady Melania Trump or accused the brand of copying a blogger's T-shirt design.

It seems at least conceivable that this campaign seemed to be driven by personal resentment as well as by the right to “free speech”, which Diet Prada insists on again and again.

However, Dolce & Gabbana could ignore all of this and concentrate on their fans and customers, of whom there are still enough - certainly also in Asia.

Instead, they are one of the first fashion brands to take action against a social media movement that has set itself the goal of making the big and influential people aware of their mistakes and holding them accountable for them.

That is basically correct, even if it is a pity that this “call out culture” almost always degenerates into a “cancel culture” that prefers to target its enemy image rather than engaging in a real dialogue with him .

Of course, companies have the right to defend themselves if they find allegations made on the Internet to be untrue or defamatory.

Dolce & Gabbana, however, got itself into trouble with a stereotyping campaign.

Now the label is not the first and only house that still has a lot to learn in the very western fashion industry.

But instead of holding back, it engages in a fight it can only lose, at least from a PR perspective.

Luxury managers and designers should now be aware that there is no room for nuances and misunderstandings in virtual space.

Of course, that's not nice and fair.

But if you have found yourself in the middle of a shit storm, you shouldn't be interested in turning the pack against you again.

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