MILAN (AP) – Milan fashion house Dolce & Gabbana filed a defamation lawsuit in an Italian court asking for more than $ 600 million in damages from two US fashion bloggers who published anti-Asian comments attributed to one of designers that led to a boycott by Asian consumers.
The lawsuit was filed in Milan’s civil court in 2019, but it only became public this week when bloggers posted about it on their Instagram account, Diet Prada. His feed is widely followed in the fashion world for his sharp comments on the lack of originality in designs and social issues.
“This whole case is a way of trying to silence Diet Prada and silence Tony (Liu) and Lindsay (Schuyler) personally,” said Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, which coordinates the bloggers. defense.
Dolce & Gabbana’s lawyers contacted by the AP declined to comment.
The case dates back to November 2018, when Dolce & Gabbana faced a boycott in Asia after outrage over what were seen as culturally insensitive videos promoting a big Shanghai parade and subsequent posts of insulting comments in a private Instagram chat.
The show was canceled in the reaction, which included retailers withdrawing goods from Dolce & Gabbana and Asian VIPs rejecting the brand.
Designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana initially said that Gabbana’s account had been hacked. The two later appeared in a video apologizing to the Chinese people.
“A public apology and a silent process really cancel each other out in my mind,” Safidi told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Italian defense lawyers filed a petition this week in the Milan civil court, arguing that Italy is not the right place for the case, since the blog is produced in the United States and the alleged damage has occurred in Asia.
The brand is asking for damages totaling more than half a billion euros, said Scafidi.
According to her, the brand seeks to spend 450 million euros to restore the brand image since 2018 and losses of 3 million euros for the company and 1 million for Gabbana, to whom the comments were attributed. The lawsuit also calls for more than 8.6 million euros for the cancellation of the Shanghai show, another 8.6 million euros for personnel expenses and 89.6 million euros for lost sales in Asia from November 2018 to March 2019.
Since going public, Diet Prada, who has more than 2.5 million followers on Instagram, has raised more than $ 38,000 to defend himself.
In a statement, Liu and Schuyler said they would not allow their platform, which also talked about the #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter and recent attacks on Asians in the United States, to be silenced by lawsuits.
“Diet Prada will continue to be a platform to raise these crucial issues,” said Liu.
Schuyler called for “public figures and brands to respond to public opinion and media criticism with progressive actions, not lawsuits”.