Designer Tarun Tahiliani accuses Made in Heaven makers of appropriation of designs 

Even as the makers of Made in Heaven issued a statement justifying their side of the story in the Yashica Dutt controversy, a brand new problem has snowboarded onto them. Costume designer Tarun Tahiliani took to his Instagram, on Thursday, accusing the makers of the series for appropriation of his designs. 

In a detailed note, the designer pointed out the second episode of the series starring Mrunal Thakur and wrote, "It is most unfortunate when a popular OTT series violates the understanding behind the provision of clothing in the first place! Case in point: Significant portions of the second episode of 'Made in Heaven,' were styled using clothes provided by the Tarun Tahiliani studio in good faith to the stylist."

The episode features Mrunal as a bride who goes to the studio of a fictitious costume designer named Akshay Jaiswal for her wedding attire. Pointing out the same, he further wrote, "Unfortunately, a fictitious designer (actor) representing a fictitious label presented our garments! This is a shocking breach of faith. If this is what the production house intended, they should have engaged a costume designer, had costumes designed, and proceeded as they saw fit."

Condemning the actions of the makers, he concluded, "Let's hope that this scenario does not repeat itself with other designers who have graciously lent their work for OTT productions. Furthermore, it is our hope that such actions will never be considered acceptable in the future."

This particular season of Made in Heaven earlier received flak from Dalit author Yashica Dutt, who also accused the makers of appropriation of her work. However, the makers including Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti, Alankrita Shrivastava and Neeraj Ghaywan, issued a statement denying that the episode was drawn from Yashica’s life. 

Also starring Sobhita Dhulipala, Arjun Mathur, Jim Sarbh, Kalki Koechlin, Mona Singh, Trinetra Haldar, Shashank Arora and Shivani Raghuvanshi, the series is now available to stream on Prime Video.