Bollywood and fashion go hand-in-hand in India. I feel that it is just a case of two equally strong influencers coming up with a thoughtfully cultivated trend, fully aware of its impact among followers.”Remarks designer Poornima Vardhan of the label 355th, this is entrenched in the entire ecosystem of the Indian design fraternity, She says, “The bigger problem lies in how easy it is to copy and get away with it. One can give credit to the styling team for some tweak in both the looks, but overall it’s not a case of copy-paste. Creating an original piece of work is a time consuming and expensive proposition, thus, several designers take the easy path to lift off existing designs and get by. Similarly a sari — a classic design — is made by many designers, where some thoughts will overlap and one should appreciate the beauty rather than ridicule their hard work. He hasn’t done sequined saris ever before. For example, most diamond jewellery is white, that doesn’t make them all the same. The design stores stock the same collection; with PR push the celebrities wear the same copied designs. So in a way we are all complicit in this crime.

To be fair, Manish Malhotra had designed these saris earlier, with many other stars wearing them in different colours.”. Designers chase celebrity stylists to dress up top actors in their designs as it gets them great mileage. It makes them trendy and fashionable. India’s top designers Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Manish Malhotra design identical saris worn by actors Deepika Padukone and Kajol respectively! Had it been the case with small-time designers, definitely one of them would have been called out for ‘copying’. With so many trends easily accessible to the mass, it becomes easy to claim that one has copied the other. However, the biggest snafu happens when celebrities end up wearing very similar outfits.

THE ASIAN AGE.I, Nylon Spandex Fabrics suppliers personally remember a runway collection of a leading Indian designer highly influenced by Gucci and the entire media swooning over it, writing rave reviews without anyone pointing the obvious. How did Deepika’s stylist miss it?A Mumbai-based celebrity stylist (who prefers being anonymous) calls it a very common practice in the industry. “Every designer in India deals in this fabric and they just replace the tag by putting their label. To blame established designers for ‘lifting’ the idea might seem a bit extreme, and being in the same industry it is quite common for people to use similar patterns, embroideries, embellishments, colours, and fabrics.”Whereas jewellery designer of Aayushi Jain believes that fashion plagiarism is an important issue, but many have started to use this term frivolously. In fact Kajol wore the sari first. Deepika’s Sabyasachi sari was in fact a first-of-its-kind by the designer. Fashion expert and image consultant Renu Mehra says, “Bling or sequins in monochromes are always in fashion, for example, in this case, the similar-looking saris by two famous designers.”

The Indian sari is one of the sexiest drapes, and undoubtedly celebrities and our designers love it equally. | NIVI SHRIVASTAVA Published: Jan 13, 2020, 2:40 am IST Updated: Jan 13, 2020, 2:40 am IST A Mumbai-based celebrity stylist (who prefers being anonymous) calls it a very common practice in the industry. Saris like these are no-brainer; if you look at the sequin work – it’s all machine work and there is no design element in this. When top actresses endorse a designer label, the brand value of the design house automatically goes up.Actors Deepika Padukone and Kajol, were spotted wearing almost identical midnight blue sequined saris at their respective film promotion events! Was it too much of a coincidence that Deepika’s sari by designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Kajol’s outfit by Manish Malhotra were so similar?To be fair, Manish Malhotra had designed these saris earlier, with many other stars wearing them in different colours. Which is why eyebrows are being raised. She says, “If a simple thing like sequin is trending and two designers indulge in this, it doesn’t make either of them copy-cats