Designer Sandeep Khosla recently addressed the controversy surrounding Urvashi Rautela’s outfit, which drew parallels to Gigi Hadid’s design. He emphasised that for copied designs, an enhancement should be evident rather than mere replication.
This fashion controversy emerged at the Cannes Film Festival of 2026. Fashion experts immediately called out the outfit for being a replica of Gigi Hadid’s creation made by Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla in March 2023 at the launch of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre.
When asked about the incident and the rising business of plagiarised couture in Indian luxury fashion, Sandeep said, “If you want to plagiarise and you want to copy, make a better version of what we are doing. He recalled his reaction to seeing Urvashi’s copied look online and said, “Just the other day I was seeing there’s a lady called Urvashi Rautela, I think, who wore a copy of ours, of Gigi Hadid… and there was an influencer doing a whole post on how you can get an original Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla outfit made where Urvashi got it made. He continued and said, “Firstly, Urvashi is wearing an exact copy of our garment without a thought.
Her appearance was called out on social media as a ‘Gandi copy,’ to which, years later, the designer Sandeep Khosla weighed in on the matter. Three years after that momentous event, a single saree has managed to bring into the discussion the one revolving around celebrities’ outfits and the blurry limits of inspiration and copying, proving that sometimes, the real fashion story happens post-production. Either she has no exposure, or she has too much exposure. And then, the influencer is actually encouraging the copies to happen, which I find really… There has to be at least some difference, or do something… It should be a take of an artist themselves to do something else. Also, that’s called very easy fashion. Urvashi Rautela made a grand presentation wearing an ivory dinner outfit with a large gold ornamental blouse.
