Plagiarism in the fashion industry has been a persisting problem. So, in an effort to put an end to copycats and plagiarists, Diet Sabya, an anonymous Instagram handle is on a mission to call out to stylists and designers to have conveniently escaped the drill.

Diet Sabya is sparing no one! This team of self-proclaimed fashion police prefers keeping their identity hidden, calling out the fake imitators in the fashion industry.

Its list of almost 80,000 followers is populated with many well-known names, including  Alia Bhatt and Karan Johar. Sonam Kapoor has also voiced support of the Instagram account calling out imitations or appropriations, even blatant copies, in fashion, and designer Masaba Gupta is a frequent commenter.

Turns out that the list of Diet Sabya’s admirers now has a new addition and it’s none other than ace fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee who is all for the self-appointed fashion watchdog that’s named after him. The designer expressed his admiration for it in an interview with a leading Kolkata-based daily.

RECOMMENDED READ: KARAN JOHAR ADMITS HE HAS COPIED STUFF TOO BUT HE FEARS DIET SABYA NOW

Read Sabyasachi’s anecdote about Diet Sabya from the interview:

“Diet Sabya brought a smile to my face. There was this conspiracy theory that Karan Johar is Diet Sabya and then Karan came out and said ‘no, no, it’s not me’ (laughs out loud). But we all follow it, from Karan to me. At first, I had no idea what Diet Sabya was. So Manav (his assistant) came and told me someone has done a trashing website and they’ve put your name on it. He said it was Diet Sabya. So I said, isn’t there a Diet Prada also? So how can that be bad? It’s an honour. But I called my publicist and asked her whether we should send them a legal notice because they had used my name without asking. She said ‘Don’t you think it’s a homage?’ Another friend from the fashion industry said this clearly shows that you have arrived. These guys are pretty good...”

This must have been an especially big moment for Diet Sabya creators, who called Sabyasachi “the country’s most copied couturier,” in an email interview with another leading daily.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhRp2YilOF8/?hl=en&taken-by=dietsabya

Here’s Diet Sabya’s response to getting this validation from Sabyasachi: “We think this is the first time he’s made a rather public statement about Diet Sabya. We see this remark as extremely kind and flattering. Yeah, as long as he is not suing us. LOL. And, without blowing our own trumpet, we are bloody good. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again, we know our fashion!”

While it must be interesting to have an Instagram account named after you, even Sabyasachi has no clue who runs the anonymous fashion account. But he has some ideas. The designer said in the interview, “I have a feeling that they are art history students, or they are design professors. I would really like to know who it is!”

But Diet Sabya creators would rather not comment on Sabyasachi’s hunch and would simply like to be referred to as 'cultural sponges.'