Dolce & Gabbana filed a $600 million lawsuit against Diet Prada

Dolce & Gabbana sued two bloggers for defamation and seeking over $600 million or around £434 million for damages. The Milan-based fashion conglomerate filed the lawsuit in the Italian court against two US-based fashion bloggers who own Diet Prada, the Instagram page of the fashion watchdog group.

The defamation lawsuit filed by D&G

Dolce & Gabbana sued Diet Prada that was founded by fashion industry professionals Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler has due to damages it got after the bloggers reposted an anti-Asian comment which led to Asian consumers boycotting the fashion brand.

It was said that D&G lost huge profits after Liu and Schuylerhas posted screenshots that show racist comments that were allegedly written by the Italian designer. As per USA Today, the suit was actually filed in civil court in 2019 but it was only this month that it became public after Diet Prada revealed it through its Instagram.

It was learned that Liu and Schuyler are receiving help from the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School for their defense against Dolce & Gabbana. The institute showed its support to the fashion bloggers through a short statement.

“This whole case is a way of trying to silence Diet Prada, and to silence Tony (Liu) and Lindsay (Schuyler) personally,” Susan Scafidi, the director of FLI said. She is also the one who’s coordinating the pair’s defense in the case.

The root of the case

In 2018, Dolce & Gabbana was boycotted in Asia after the public was outraged over posts that were supposedly uploaded by the fashion company on its social media page. They think the videos that were released to promote a runway show in Shanghai were culturally insensitive.

Based on the report, there were also insulting comments via private Instagram chat after the videos were posted. Due to the backlash, the show was entirely canceled and retailers have pulled out Dolce & Gabbana items from their stores. Asian VIPs were also said to have withdrawn their support for the brand.

The bashing against D&G escalated when Diet Prada posted screenshots of messages who they claimed were sent by Stefano Gabbana who made racist comments against China. In response, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana claimed that their official fashion account had been hacked and apologized to the Chinese through a video.

Meanwhile, Liu and Schuyler said they will not be silenced in their advocacies. They also revealed they have already filed a counter to the lawsuit filed by D&G.

“On Monday, we filed a defense of our freedom of speech in answer to defamation claims brought in a Milan court by Dolce & Gabbana,” Diet Panda wrote on Instagram on March 5.