Dolce & Gabbana Designer Makes Some Questionable Comments About Sexual Harassment
In light of sexual assault allegations made against powerful figures in Hollywood, major players in the fashion industry have come out to express support for survivors and, in some cases, share their own experiences of harassment and abuse while at work. Across the board, the industry has condemned this behavior—except, it seems, for Stefano Gabbana, one half of the creative team behind Dolce & Gabbana. In an interview with Vogue UK, the Italian designer characterized sexual harassment as “not violence”—and that was only the beginning.
When the conversation veered towards the recent wave of accusations made against people in positions of power (in this particular case, the topic was brought up in light of allegations about U.K. politician Mark Garnier), Gabbana said: “It’s not new! Luchino Visconti [the Italian director] asked Helmut Berger [the Austrian actor] and Alain Delon [the French actor] to go in the bed… But listen, you decide. It’s true. Everybody knows. After twenty years you say, ‘Ah! He touched my ass!’ It’s not violence, this.”
He continued: “Who doesn’t do sex? Who doesn’t? It’s a trend. Now the trend is sex. But sex is an old story. We are Italian. We came from the Roman Empire. We know very well.”
Gabbana went on to describe political correctness as “fake, because you don’t have the power to explain what you really think. With respect to everyone, I am not Mussolini. I am not God. It’s just my opinion. But I love when people say exactly what they think. If you don’t agree with another person, you still have the freedom to say what you think.” Early on in the conversation with Vogue UK, he described himself as “not politically correct” and Dolce as “more than me.”
The designer has never been one to hold his tongue. These comments are but the latest entry in a long list of inflammatory statements that have caused controversy. In 2015, the design duo suggested that marriage should only be for heterosexual couples, and that gay couples shouldn’t have “synthetic” children, referring to babies born from IVF; they apologized months after. More recently, Gabbana body-shamed, then apologized for body-shaming Lady Gaga during her 2017 Super Bowl performance. The brand has attracted criticism, too, for agreeing to dress First Lady Melania Trump—and responded to the backlash by staging a tongue-in-cheek “boycott” of Dolce & Gabbana.
Glamour has reached out to Dolce & Gabbana for comment, and will update this story when we receive a response.
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