Why yes, it does. Dolce and Gabbana, purveyor of global luxury and all things sexy, showed its Spring 2013 collection last week in Milan. The collection was very much in the same vein as what the design team showed last spring, which was Sicilian?inspired with hot peppers printed on full skirts and fashioned into plastic earrings. Only this time, instead of a tongue?in?cheek print of a vegetable, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana designed a collection with a colonial theme, complete with heavy Blackamoor imagery on the prints and plastic Blackamoor figurines for earrings. The sheer black ribbon dresses in the finale were kitsch and decidedly sexy. They were also unabashedly and blatantly racist.
Blackamoor is used to describe an artistic depiction of black Africans in fine art and jewelry that was popular in the 1700s. Small marble broaches and sculptures encrusted with rubies, emeralds and diamonds were de rigueur for a brief, albeit politically incorrect, stretch of time. Nowadays, one would expect that blackamoor brooches and jewelry would most often pass through the hands of Sotheby's auctioneers, not tourists popping into the Dolce and Gabbana store on Madison Avenue. As a family heirloom, it could perhaps pass as a relic of time, a snapshot of the days of banana republics. As a current fashion commodity from a top retailer, it is completely inappropriate.
Online champion of all things liberal, Huffington Post immediately commented on the runway transgression with a headline reading, "Dolce and Gabbana Black Figurine Earrings And Dress, Are They Racist?" Refinery29.com seriously snubbed the brand in its review of the collection, saying it "rested heavily on the laurels of a long?lost colonial era, complete with all the cartoonish, debasing, subaltern imagery that would make even your politically incorrect Grandpa think twice." The post generated multiple comments from readers, with almost all of them expressing appall over the clothing. However, much to my surprise and dismay, Style.com - arguably the most reliable source for fashion images and coverage - posted its review of the show without a single comment on the offensive racial designs. The story actually resonated better with mainstream media outlets like HuffPo and the Telegraph U.K. than it did with many of the fashion sites and blogs I browsed.
I believe this particular collection is a breach of artistic expression, and quite frankly, of good taste. Fashion has always walked a very fine line between avant?garde and potentially offensive - how about the S&M trends of late with their abounding harnesses? - but this instance reaches into a very sensitive topic, one that is woven into the social fabric of our country and many others, and one that is still at the forefront of much political debate. By capturing these images and printing them on swaths of bright silk, Dolce and Gabbana sends a very clear message that fashion is above political correctness, above racial sensitivity and even above legal ramifications.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have constructed an empire of desirable clothes that women flock towards, but I wait patiently to see how their customers will interpret this collection. Even for women who may not personally find the clothing offensive, the notion of being viewed as a racist just by wearing them will likely be too great to overcome when it comes time to pay. Social norms no longer permit people to dress in manners like this, especially in the elite, affluent and educated circles where Dolce and Gabbana customers reside. In the end, it's the customer's wallet that speaks.
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Elizabeth Landers is a senior majoring in political science. She can be reached at Elizabeth.Landers@tufts.edu.
