Model Protests D&G in the Middle of a Fashion Show

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

From Harper's BAZAAR

Miley Cyrus wasn't the only one who called out Dolce & Gabbana for its political views last weekend. A model who walked in the brand's show did too, right on the runway.

Raury, a singer-songwriter and rapper who has collaborated with artists from Chance the Rapper to Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, used the catwalk as a platform to protest D&G for proudly dressing First Lady Melania Trump (and then later mocking critics with a "#Boycott Dolce & Gabbana" T-shirt).

During the finale, he took off his shirt to reveal disapproving messages he had written on his torso: "Protest D&G," "Give me freedom" and "I am not your scapegoat." He held up his fist and stood front and center on the runway as other models walked past.

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

"The 'Boycott Dolce & Gabbana' T-shirt completely makes a mockery of what 'boycotting' is. Boycotting is the people’s voice. A protest is the people’s voice. It has power," the Atlanta-based Raury told GQ. He added that the commercials D&G released for the tee, which featured models "protesting" in a lighthearted manner (think Kendall Jenner's Pepsi ad), seemed like "a joke" and "a troll."

Raury only found out about the T-shirt controversy a day before the fashion show, but he was personally moved to say something about it. "Me, as a young man from Stone Mountain, Georgia, the birthplace of the Klu Klux Klan, I really felt this mockery of boycotting," he said.

"I know that if I walk out there and support or endorse anything that sits next to Trump - or support someone who even makes dinner for Trump or whatever - then that means that I support Trump also," he later added. "I don’t support Trump."

Photo credit: Getty
Photo credit: Getty

The Atlanta-based musician was one of the many models to walk D&G's millennial-themed runway show on Saturday. He joined young #influencers and celebrity children like Cindy Crawford's son Presley Gerber, Miley Cyrus' brother Briason and Sylvester Stallone's daughter Sistine, in the lineup.

The aftermath of his runway protest wasn't pretty. Raury immediately rushed for the exit after leaving the catwalk, but a security guard stopped him. However, he was able to change out of his runway look and into his own clothes, and leave with his manager. "I had to run, like, 300 feet up and away from them," he recalled.

The brand hasn't responded to Raury's demonstration yet. However, while responding to Miley Cyrus over the weekend, Stefano Gabbana asserted that Dolce & Gabbana's fashion has nothing to do with politics. He wrote on Instagram: "We are Italian and we don't care about politics and mostly neither about the American one! We make dresses and if you think about doing politics with a post it's simply ignorant."

Raury, however, thinks politics are impossible to avoid or ignore. "Honestly, fashion, music, movies, art, people, construction workers, human beings, everyone mingles with politics at work. That’s life," he said. "If your message is cool, then it’s cool. But if it ain’t, millennials are going to come and let you know. And we won’t let up."

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