After an interview with the Italian magazine called Panorama was released, Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have experienced backlash after making what some saw as an attack against gay families. The translation, via Huffington Post, states that children born through IVF are “children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteruses for rent, semen chosen form a catalog.” Dolce also stated, “I am gay, I cannot have a child. I guess you cannot have everything in life,” Dolce continued, “Life has a natural course, some things can not be changed. One of them is family.” Their recent fall-winter 2015 runway collection was centered around family–mainly a mother figure or “mamma” in Italian.
Sir Elton John took issue to their comments, writing on his Instagram, the following message. (Elton has two children by surrogate) “How dare you refer to my beautiful children as “synthetic”. And shame on you for wagging your judgemental (sic) little fingers at IVF – a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfil (sic) their dream of having children. Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana”
For his part, Stefano Gabbana took to his Instagram to defend himself and Dolce. He posted multiple images with captions like: “#boycottdolcegabbanna is the new black” and “#boycottdolcegabbana because is different! And you hate the different opinion!! Racist Dictators freedom to speak” along with a collage of the Charlie Hebdo campaign, supportive comments and more.
Update: Dolce & Gabbana have released an official statement via The Associated Press saying that their views are not meant as a judgment on nontraditional families. “It was never our intention to judge other people’s choices. We do believe in freedom and love,” Gabbana says. Dolce conveyed that growing up in a traditional Sicilian family affected his views. “I am very well aware of the fact that there are other types of families and they are as legitimate as the one I’ve known.”
