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The founders of the Italian fashion label Dolce & Gabbana have issued an apology to the Chinese people after a growing backlash over Stefano Gabbana’s “racist outburst”.

In a video released on Friday, Gabbana and Domenico Dolce spoke of their love and respect for Chinese culture, South China Morning Post reports.

“We offer our sincerest apologies to Chinese people worldwide,” said Gabbana.

Dolce continued: “We hope our misunderstanding of Chinese culture can be forgiven.

“We’ve always been very crazy about China, we’ve visited it a lot. We’ve been to many cities. We love your culture.”

The video ended with the pair saying the single word “sorry” in Mandarin.

The fashion house has faced intense anger after an Instagram conversation in which Gabbana described China as a “country of s***” was leaked.

The brand had already faced widespread criticism for an advertising campaign, which featured a Chinese model struggling to eat Italian dishes like pizza and cannoli with chopsticks and prompted accusations that it was stereotyping the Chinese.

The resulting backlash has forced the fashion chain to cancel a show in Shanghai and retailers in mainland China and Hong Kong have stopped selling its products.

Protesters have also targeted the chain’s flagship store in the heart of Milan’s fashion district.

Video footage of a protest in Milan on Wednesday, which showed dozens of Chinese people holding “not me” sign outside the store on Via Monte Napoleone, has been widely circulated on social media.

The protesters included a Liu Xingyu, a male model who had appeared in one of the fashion house’s Milan shows.

The term “not me” has been adopted worldwide by people angered by Gabbana’s comment.

The company had previously apologised to “China and the Chinese people” and expressed regret that its Shanghai event had been cancelled, while Gabbana claimed that his Instagram account had been hacked.

On Thursday Gabbana shared a post by another Instagram user that defended the brand and its founders.

“If Dolce & Gabbana was racist, they wouldn’t pay tribute a lot of times to China or Japan, or even having Chinese models on their shows runways or advertising … I’m a proud Albanian, I worked with them and never saw racism in them! I’m so sorry for people who always see only the half empty glass,” the post said.

The company said the cancellation of its show in Shanghai was “very unfortunate not only for us, but also for all the people who worked day and night to bring this event to life”.