Unless you live under a rock we're sure you've at least heard of fashion giant Versace. The fashion mogul is known worldwide for its fabulous collection and there's no place in the world where it has no fans. However, the brand recently found itself in hot water after a t-shirt made by it sparked outrage in China.
Versace identified Hong Kong and Macau as countries but these actually happen to be autonomous territories. While it's true that both Hong Kong and Macau were once upon a time leased to European colonies, the UK's lease over Hong Kong ended in 1997 whereas Portugal's agreement with Macau ended in 1999. So, even though these two territories are regions of China, they still happen to have their own administrative powers and run independently on a large scale.
What happened with Versace was that their T-shirts featured city-country pairs like 'New York-USA' and 'Beijing-China', while Hong Kong and Macau were described as 'Hong Kong-Hong Kong' and 'Macau-Macau.' After the pictures of these t-shirts were posted on Chinese social media, it created outrage amongst the people.
The brand then took to their social media handles to issue a statement which read, "Versace reiterates that we love China deeply, and resolutely respect China's territory and national sovereignty." Donatella Versace also took to her official Instagram handle to put up an apology regarding the same. It read, "Never have I wanted to disrespect China's National Sovereignty and this is why I wanted to personally apologize for such inaccuracy and for any distress that it might have caused."
Such was the impact of the mistake that Yang Mi, who happens to be one of the most well-known actresses in China also announced via her studio that she was ending her contract with Versace as their brand ambassador to China. Stay tuned for more updates.
