QC Open Forum: How Effective Is The Dolce & Gabbana Boycott?

If you have been following the news, you probably know about the unfortunate, to say the least, declarations of Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana co-creators of luxury fashion house Dolce & Gabbana and a couple for 23 years, before breaking-up in 2005. To sum the mess up, they criticized non-traditional families and declare themselves against same-sex parenting. The sentence “No chemical offsprings and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.” was seen by many as the most offensive. Curiously, Stefano Gabbana asked a friend of his to be a surrogate mother before unleashing the controversial comments.

Such statements were received as an attack by gay activists and advocates of gay rights with Elton John emerging as the most vocal opponent calling for a boycott on Dolce&Gabbana using Instagram as his vehicle, the designers unsuccessfully tried to counter the protest but it backfired spectacularly. Sir Elton himself was subject of scrutiny after being spotted holding a D&G bag right after urging other celebs and people in general to refrain from using or buying the Italian brand. To add fuel to the PR disaster, Dolce & Gabbana outraged feminists with a terrible ad that simulated a gangbang with a female model. With many seeing this as a debate on free speech and other seeing this as nothing but plain old hate, we ask you QC reader. Do you think that the D&G boycott will be effective? We want to know your opinions, join the conversation in the comments!