Tarun Tahiliani denies body shaming influencer over wedding dress; check thread here

There’s been a major showdown between Indian fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani and a social media influencer after she accused the former of body shaming her as she went shopping for her wedding outfit. 

It so happened that social media influencer Dr Tanaya Narendra aka Dr Cuterus alleged that she was body shamed at a Tarun Tahiliani store while looking for a bridal dress. She wrote, “Bridal stores would body shame (looking at you, Ambawatta @taruntahiliani {yeah, that was a massive shame, because I’d wanted to wear a Tarun T to my wedding since I was 12. Never going there again.”

Tarun Tahiliani was quick to respond and wrote, “The pandemic put us in a situation where our stores do not carry a size 16 (due to limited stock). Neither can we replicate a couture piece in three weeks because of the exceptional quality standards that we have set for ourselves.”

“Instead of misleading a customer about how long it would take to customise a product, we choose to tell them that it would not happen in the timeline they require; it cannot be called fat/body shaming. That said, if our communication of stock availability, timelines needed for production and customisation has made the clients feel even the slightest not welcome and acknowledged, then we are truly sorry because that is not and will never be the intent. Women of a diversity of body types across ages every year have had the pleasure of wearing TT,” the designer wrote.

Tahiliani also shared that his design house “reached out directly to the person concerned yesterday afternoon via Instagram direct message…to understand her experience in detail and we did not hear back.”

Following the designer’s statement, the influencer took to Instagram to share a screenshot of the mail chain between the two parties. “So, I’d reached out to TT before I went to their store (via email {note this, because it is very important that they have my direct email line}). I had specifically mentioned my size, so ‘fitting would be a concern’. Notice that they have not made me aware of any size stock issues here,” she wrote.

She further said, “It was the way their salesperson looked at me up and down and asked, ‘oh *you* are getting married?’ as if I am inherently unmarriageable. It was the way they kept saying ‘we don’t have this in *your size*’…it was the way that, as they led me out of the store, the salesperson said, ‘may be this outfit would make you look more…in shape’.”