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Fashion designer Stefano Gabbana has vigorously defended his criticism of gay adoptions, using social media to create a range of hashtags and slogans - but none have really taken off.

The fashion designer Stefano Gabbana is calling for his fans to boycott Elton John after a very public spat on Instagram. Gabbana and his long-time business partner Domenico Dolce, who were a couple for more than two decades, managed to irritate several different groups of people in an interview with (an Italian news magazine not to be confused with the 91�ȱ� series of the same name). "We oppose gay adoptions," they say. "The only family is the traditional one."

They also criticise IVF and surrogate parents: "No chemical offspring and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed."

"You are born to a mother and a father - or at least that's how it should be," Dolce says. "I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Rented uterus, semen chosen from a catalogue."

Soon people were posting pictures of their children conceived through IVF and tweeting support for gay marriage. Sir Elton John, who has two children with husband David Furnish, . Next to a picture of the designers, he writes: "How dare you refer to my beautiful children as 'synthetic'. And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF - a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfil their dream of having children." He signed off with: "#BoycottDolceGabbana"

Gabbana seemed to take the criticism to heart, and since the controversy took off he's . At one point he played on a slogan popular in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks and . And in another he posted a picture of a woman and a child along with the words: "#dgmamma #dgfamily."

In a post Monday Gabbana shouted "Fascist!" and took direct aim at the singer: "#boycotteltonjohn". On his Instagram account, as you might expect, there was quite a lot of support for his criticism of Elton John among the hundreds of comments. says: "We live in a free world and if Stefano wants express his personal opinion it's his right. So just mind your own business."

Others disagreed: "We live in a world of differences," . "You should know better."

The fashion designer's rallying cry doesn't seem to have taken off. On Twitter about 1,500 people have tweeted #BoycottEltonJohn, with most influential tweets coming from Italians. A related hashtag, #SupportDolceGabbana, has around 2,700 tweets. But both are up against #BoycottDolceGabbana which has been used more than 30,000 times.

Blog by Mike Wendling

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