When Dolce & Gabbana released a racist advertisement for its China show late last year, many insiders pointed to the brand’s inability to listen to its China-based counterparts. And if European-based brands want to be global businesses whose products are sold worldwide, they have to look and act like global businesses. It can be difficult to remember that no matter how globalized the fashion industry has become, its brands are headquartered in different countries with different values. Of course, the entire industry faces these problems, but Gucci addressing them could set an example for the rest of the industry.ĭap also points out that the Gucci team will be coming from Italy. This is a problem across the fashion industry: it is a culture of yes and so chic and go off, not one of sensitivity and caution. And if they did feel uncomfortable but felt they couldn’t say something, Gucci needs to do better work to empower its young and nonwhite staffers. Still, I have a hard time believing a set of nonwhite or Western eyes would have seen that piece by itself and not seen the resemblance to blackface. At the time, the piece was worn with a red and white beanie, which made it look slightly more like an actual ski mask than a racist wool monstrosity, but perhaps we were all distracted by models literally carrying their own heads. That might have kept the sweater from appearing in the first place, in the Fall 2018 show in Milan last February, which memorably featured models carrying their own heads and a number of New York Yankees garments. Underwriting Dap’s atelier was admirable, but couldn’t the brand also have taken the opportunity to hire more nonwhite staffers within their own ranks? ( Doesn’t Michele claim to have a team of millennial advisors? He should listen to them more!) Or, more ideally, as creators running a team that looks more like the world the brand wants to dress. In other words, all levels of workers who might have functioned as whistleblowers in the case of Dap’s stolen jacket design, and again in the creation of this balaclava. It’s just as much about the people we can’t see: the designers, the seamstresses, the marketing team, the public relations executives. Fashion’s diversity problem isn’t only about the lack of nonwhite public figures.
First, Gucci did the right thing in reopening Dap’s atelier in 2017-but that was only part of the work Gucci needed to do at the time. But Dap’s statement underscores some of the realities that may have allowed this to happen, and some of the issues I hope he’ll discuss with Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri. What that accountability means specifically will hopefully be made transparent after their meeting.
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