Bella Hadid drags ‘embarrassing’ Dolce & Gabbana for ‘years of racism, sexism, bigotry’ after controversial show
Bella Hadid knows a fashion disaster when she sees one.
The supermodel, 29, slammed Dolce & Gabbana on Instagram this week after the Italian fashion house presented a menswear collection with a model lineup one commentator described as “fifty shades of white.”
The critique began in the comments section of a video posted by fashion creator Elias Medini, who goes by Lyas, criticizing the brand’s casting choices for its fall/winter men’s show during Milan Fashion Week.
“Shocked people actually support this company still it’s embarrassing,” Hadid wrote. “Models / stylists/ casting the whole damn thing.”
Her initial comment racked up over 60,000 likes. In a follow-up, she wrote that the brand has “beeeen cancelled…. years of racism sexism bigotry xenophobia … how are we shocked still ?”
In his video, Medini noted the show, titled “The Portrait of Man,” appeared to feature a homogenous cast of models (that didn’t even include nary a blond, for that matter), a striking contrast to the collection’s promotional tagline celebrating “the singular identity of every man.”
Other fashion insiders echoed Hadid’s sentiment. Stylist and editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson commented: “This is what happens when the powers that be continue to make excuses for a brand that is consistently racist, homophobic, xenophobic in order to keep accepting their advertiser dollars.”
“Micro aggressions become macro aggressions, and mistakes become modus operandi,” Karefa-Johnson continued. “There is no bag big enough to align with this brand– their agenda isn’t even hidden anymore.”
Content creator Tefi Pessoa simply commented “YUCK,” while rapper Skepta, a current face of Louis Vuitton, dropped a “Zzzz.”
Reps for the brand did not immediately return Page Six Style’s request for comment.
This latest firestorm adds another chapter to Dolce & Gabbana’s fraught history. In 2018, the brand was forced to cancel a major Shanghai show after co-founder Stefano Gabbana allegedly sent DMs calling Chinese people “ignorant dirty smelling mafia.”
This followed a controversial promotional campaign showing a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks.
In 2015, the designers also faced backlash when they criticized IVF, surrogacy and gay adoption in an interview with an Italian magazine, calling children conceived through IVF “children of chemistry” and “synthetic children.”
They’ve also slammed celebs personally, including calling Selena Gomez “so ugly,” branding Chiara Ferragni’s wedding gown “cheap” and calling the Kardashian family “the most cheap people in the world.”
Despite the controversies, Dolce & Gabbana remains a staple for many stars, including several of Hadid’s close friends. Kim Kardashian has maintained a particularly close relationship with the brand, launching a Skims x Dolce & Gabbana collection in 2024 that crashed the website due to demand.
The designers praised their “long-standing friendship” with Kardashian in a press release at the time, citing their shared values of “inclusivity and body positivity.”
