Melania Trump Sticks With Dolce & Gabbana Despite Brand’s Latest Controversy

Melania Trump is a loyal Dolce & Gabbana fan.

Despite the fact that the luxury fashion house has been facing a major backlash following the release of an ad campaign in China featuring racist stereotyping, the first lady chose a dress from the controversial Italian brand for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday at the Trump family’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

The 48-year-old former model is not known for recycling her luxury looks, but for the holiday dinner she re-wore a black tulle D&B midi dress featuring a ruffled lace detail that she previously wore during a trip to Jerusalem, Israel, last May. The fancy frock from the brand’s fall ’16 collection retails for $4,497.50. 

For many of her official appearances over the past two years, the former model has opted for luxury pieces from the Italian brand.

Recently, Trump showed off a black wool Dolce & Gabbana coat paired with black pumps earlier this month as she made her way to Brett Kavanaugh’s investiture ceremony.

The first lady also memorably wore a black bejeweled Dolce & Gabbana dress for the family’s Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party last year.

And in May, while visiting Italy, Trump stepped out in a head-turning $51,500 Dolce & Gabbana 3D floral coat with a matching purse, an off-white dress and coordinating pumps with floral jacquard.

This week, Dolce & Gabbana incited heavy criticism when it released a series of short videos on its social media channels to promote a planned runway show in Shanghai. The videos, showing a model struggling to eat Italian foods with chopsticks, resulted in accusations of racism, prompting D&G to quickly pull the clips from its social platforms.

But the controversy didn’t stop there. After designer Stefano Gabbana purportedly responded to the outcry on social media with racist comments (D&G claimed his account was hacked), many of the brand’s retail partners in Asia pulled D&G products from their shelves and the label was forced to cancel its runway presentation at great expense.

Though both Gabbana and Domenico Dolce issued an online apology this week, much of the damage has already been done. Many of their top ambassadors in China have said they are cutting ties with the luxury house, including actress Zhang Ziyi and model Estelle Chen.

You can read more about Dolce & Gabbana’s current fallout here. 

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