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Fashionista.com reports that Stefano Gabbana of the Italian luxury fashion brand duo Dolce & Gabbana recently posted an illustration of a pair of their Fall 2017 sneakers to Instagram as a sneak peek of sorts. But Instagrammers were not pleased with one of the doodles on the designer kicks.
The white sneakers embellished with studs, sequins and pearls are reminiscent of a student's notebook with quirky scribbles in different colour pens.
"I'M THIN & GORGEOUS" stood out for all the wrong reasons, putting Dolce & Gabbana in the spotlight for a footwear controversy once again.
Remember the 2016 shoegate that was the "slave sandal"?
Gabbana's followers were very quick to challenge this fat-shaming message, pointing out how exclusionary it is to other body types.
And to add insult to injury, Stefano Gabbana's highly problematic response to the backlash made things much worse. Papermag.com reports that he ignorantly hit back, posting the below:
So at a time when both social media and the fashion industry are trying to embrace an unashamed culture of body positivity, these sneakers are, basically, giving the movement the middle finger.
Now it is important to note that beyond this particular sartorial context, there are health issues associated with being either thin or fat and being thin doesn't exactly exempt you from having cholesterol. But in as much as we are against body shaming of any kind, is the rage against these shoes implying that slender people should feel bad for being slender and not self affirm accordingly?
Read more: Skinny shaming and the truth about thin privilege
I guess it's more a matter of it being more than okay to be proud of a svelte figure as overweight people have been othered for so long. But when a brand perpetuates an anti-fat culture (even obliviously) it further alienates an important market group from fashion. A group which has so often felt wronged by the fashion industry in the first place.
The Dolce & Gabbana brand has not yet given an official statement with regards to the social media counterblast against their sneakers.
