The total amount to cover the damage is of over 500 million. The conflict between Dolce e Gabbana and Diet Prada, the blog that in the fall of 2018 claimed the Italian brand had prejudice towards Chinese individuals, is not over yet. We are learning now that, in 2019, D&G filed a lawsuit with the Court in Milan claiming defamation.
500 million in damages
According to Associated Press, D&G is asking for 450 million to cover the expenses necessary to re-establish the brand’s name, along with 3 million euro in direct damages and 1 million on behalf of Stefano Gabbana, against whom were made xenophobic comments in private chats.
D&G asked, in addition, for 8.6 million euro for having had to cancel its event in Shanghai following the developments of the story by Diet Prada, as well as another 8.6 million for personnel expenses. Last but not least, 89.6 million euro to cover for the lost sales in Asia between the November 2018 and March 2019 period, always due to the story.
The Defense
The judiciary developments appear lengthy. Susan Scafidi, director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School, has taken on the role of defense for Tony Liu and Lindsay Schuyler, founders of Diet Prada. The first step taken by Liu and Schuyler was that of demanding, via the Milan-based studio AMSL Avvocati, that the site for the debate not be Milan: the blog’s HQ is in the United States, while the commercial damage took place in China.
Their view on the matter has political ties: “The lawsuit threatens our freedom of speech”, they write on Instagram. “The entire lawsuit – adds Scafidi – is a way to keep Diet Prada quiet”.
The incident in China
The fact that the incident in China caused issues for D&G isn’t a mystery. In November 2019, when the two founders of the brand apologized to the Asian public in a video, rumors claimed that the incident would have caused damages for about 400 million. In November 2020, the CEO Alfonso Dolce confessed that, while China’s market was recovering, the value wasn’t the same as before the crisis. The matter is anything but closed. Just the opposite.
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