But that was before local officials launched a criminal investigation into her for aggravated fraud, followed by an Italian consumer rights group filing a class-action lawsuit. In the end, Ferragni agreed to pay a substantial fine and donate her fee for hosting the annual Sanremo Music Festival, Italy's most popular television broadcast, for what she called a “miscommunication.” However, despite her gesture of contrition, she found herself abandoned by major sponsors such as Coca-Cola, the glasses giant Safilo and then by hundreds of thousands of followers.
When Ferragni finally reappeared on Instagram after the Christmas break, it was to post a decidedly unglamorous mea culpa. In it, the social media star appeared completely deglamorized, with little makeup and dressed in a drab gray shirt that looked like a prison suit, to issue a public apology and announce a genuine personal donation, this time of one million euros, to the Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin. , Italy.
Even so, critics were quick to take advantage of his erroneous perspective, pointing out that the shirt he was wearing sells for 600 euros and is made of cashmere, and that memes proliferated mocking his choice of wardrobe and his no longer exalted status like the half of a glamorous couple known as “Ferragnez” and even the family dog.
“Unfortunately, he must have bad people around him and he made bad decisions,” Raffaello Napoleone, chief executive of Pitti Immagine, the Italian fashion and design trade group, said before Neil Barrett's menswear show on Saturday. “When you apologize, you have to appear like you really are. “She appeared as a nun and she is not a nun.”
It didn't help Ferragni's cause that Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister, began attacking her in fiery public speeches as an affront to decency, honesty, and the very core of “Italianness,” or Italianness. And in that, some saw not only political opportunism (Fedez has been a vocal critic of the right-wing leader), but also “more than a whiff of misogyny,” as one fashion critic at the Dsquared show noted, speaking anonymously. in compliance with the employment guidelines of your publication.
“Yes, he went too far, as perhaps all influencers went too far when they became gurus,” the critic added. “But the woman-on-woman attack feeds into a prevailing anti-feminist rhetoric.”
