The founders of Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana apologised to Chinese customers on Friday as a row over racially offensive posts snowballed, with its products being pulled from lucrative Chinese e-commerce platforms.

In an attempt to salvage their reputation in the world's most important luxury market, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana capped a 1 minute 30-second mea culpa by saying "sorry" in Mandarin in a video posted on a Chinese social media platform.