If everything had gone according to plan, the Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) would have been celebrating the success of its runway show in Shanghai by the end of Wednesday night.

However, before the show would begin, a host of Chinese celebrities had withdrawn their attendance, followed by the company's later announcement that it was canceled. As of last night, the cancellation had made into the top 7 trending topics on China's Twitter-like Weibo, and people who had not been able to catch up with the news were fed with numerous round-ups of what exactly happened from various Chinese media outlets.

It all started with three advertisements that the fashion house posted on its social media over the weekend.

Featuring an Asian-looking model eating Italian foods using chopsticks and with the “instruction” of a male voice, the videos were immediately called out for being racist and stereotypical by some Chinese social media users, who drew attention to several disturbing details, including the stereotypical small and single-eyelid Asian eyes of the featured model and the fact that chopsticks are called “small-stickers” while Italian foods are described as “great”.

According to Feng Xi, vice president of the Chinese consulting firm Dataway, even though not everyone shares the same view and the question if the videos indeed constituted racism and discrimination may be up for debate, it is the brand designer Stefano Gabbana's following response that is most worrisome and has got things out of control.

When the fashion writer Michaela Phuong pointed out the issue of the videos being racist to Gabbana in direct Instagram messages, the latter rejected the accusation outright.

Later on, as the debate heated up, in a fit of rage, Gabbana made rather derogatory comments about China, which he referred to as "the country of shit" (coupled with plenty of poo emojis) and insisted that he would use that language in every interview he does in the future.

Feng commented that Gabbana's response, representing utter disrespect for China and the Chinese people, was the final straw. When the screenshots of Gabbana and Phuong's messages were later revealed on social media, the Italian fashion designer should not have been surprised to see mounting public outrage in China and the widespread boycott of the company's fashion show by Chinese celebrities.

Feng believes that even if the D&G co-founder did not think the content of the video is associated with racism in any way, when criticism emerged, the right way to go about it was to first reflect upon the reactions his ad campaign had received.

As a matter of fact, even though not everyone dislikes the videos in the same way, the ads do cause discomfort for many Chinese people. Aside from the examples illustrated earlier, the model seems to have no clue as to how to use chopsticks in the first video. During her attempt to eat the massive pizza with chopsticks, she even tried to cut it by holding a stick in each of her hands.

Feng pointed out that for some who do not only see chopsticks as eating utensils, but more importantly, a symbol of China's diverse food culture that boasts a long history, this would already cause them to feel offended. Furthermore, the model's unnatural and somewhat flamboyant way of acting also gives the impression that the Chinese culture is something that can be mocked.

Feng said that these mistakes should not have existed in the first place if the company had studied Chinese culture, not to mention when some of the concerns were made clear, Mr. Gabbana not only chose to ignore them but also treated them with contempt. The way his ad campaign was run and how he dealt with the dispute comes from nothing but deep arrogance from him and his team.

Therefore, the most important lesson to take away, as Feng concludes, is that if any foreign enterprise wanted to achieve success in the local market, they need to enhance their understanding of local people and culture and treat them with the utmost respect.

Otherwise, the ending would indeed be awkward. After the designer's "fallout with China," as the company clearly couldn't afford an extremely unpopular image in China, Mr. Gabbana and his PR team started to find solutions, and the best one they could come up with was to claim that his Instagram account had been hacked earlier and thus the comments made were not his.

In a rather awkward manner, Mr. Gabbana wrapped up the drama he has created and left us with an important lesson. Hopefully, no one repeats his mistakes.