After deliberating the contentious issue with Dapper Dan and a host of "damage control experts," Gucci's CEO Mario Bizzarri is ready to share their findings with an outraged public. With the meeting adjourned, Dapper Dan had this to say about his fact-finding mission with the Gucci higher-ups.
"We had some of the best minds from the corporate world participating, and experts in inclusivity and accountability—90% people f color," Dapper Dan wrote in his social media recap of the closed-door meeting. "They made great demands. It's time for Gucci to answer."
In response to Dapper Dan's open challenge and the looming threat of a Gucci boycott, CEO Mario Bizzarri outlined his "Diversity" plan, but not before thanking Dan for helping he and his cohorts come to such a realization.
"I am particularly grateful to Dapper Dan for the role he has played in bringing community leaders together to offer us their counsel at this time," Bizarri wrote in the capacity of the brand's keynote speaker (in the clutch). "The initiatives we are announcing today represent the first phase of what will become a new systematic long-term plan of action to guarantee that diversity and inclusion are organic in everything we do."
Gucci's action plan to embed the company's business and hopefully internal practices, with "diversity" and "inclusivity," come on the heels of its CEO sending company employees a memo along similar lines, this past week. Something tells me this initiative won't be sufficient in curtailing the threat of a boycott, because in order to feel the wind of change, someone or something that Gucci answers to directly, needs to abdicate their throne before healing can begin. "Blackface" is inherently a loaded cultural practice, no matter the level of wreckage.