Should an advertiser’s support of lesbian/gay America — through advertising, Pride parade sponsorships, whatever — affect your support of its brands?
Gay blog Queerty raises the issue this morning.
The brand in question is titanic fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, which has slowly pulled its ads from gay media outlets.
We can’t figure out why, but some people say the company’s ads are homoerotic.
“The Italian designers were once big spenders in gay media, and their homoerotic ad campaigns found a place among us when other magazines turned their backs,” Queerty reports.
But as Out magazine’s Aaron Hicklin complains, D&G is no longer a paying client.
Adds Hicklin: “Italians do seem to have a deeply conflicted relationship to homosexuality that goes back to classical Rome. We actually sent a writer, Michael Joseph Gross, to Italy some years back to write that very piece. But, still, Domenico and Stefano used to advertise in Out, and even appeared on the cover some years ago, so their retreat from gay media is disappointing.”
Dolce and Gabbana themselves, of course, are a former couple, and very gay themselves.
