you should just smile more, you’ll look prettier like that," is an unsolicited comment most women have heard through the years from families, friends, sometimes even catcallers on the street, and of course, from the strangers on the Internet. Often in safe spaces, women discuss how the comment often feels like the person asking them to smile is ‘entitled’ to it: their choice of expressing happiness sometimes feels no longer their own choice.

In fact, the culture of ‘asking girls to smile’ has made its way into general consciousness too with terms like ‘resting bitch face’ to describe women who don’t smile naturally. Regular women aside, models on photoshoots often get told to ‘not smile’ and put on their ‘poker face’ for the shoots, to take the focus away from them and onto the product they’re selling. Indian fashion and jewellery designer, Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s newest jewellery ad campaign is getting trolled online for similar reasons: The models weren’t smiling.

The stir starts from an image promoting the brand’s fine jewellery in the Autumn Winter ’21 collection campaign. The image, that created the stir, is of three supermodels decked in Sabyasachi jewellery and clothing. The post shared from the designer’s official Instagram account reads, “Sabyasachi Fine Jewellery @sabyasachijewelry featuring uncut and brilliant cut diamonds, opals, pearls, emeralds, aquamarine and coloured stones in 22k gold.”

“The idea is to promote women’s confidence without makeup while focusing on the richness bestowed by the jewelry," one countered the trolls.

Sabyasachi’s recent advertisement had come under fire on Twitter by Netizens for ‘misappropriating’ a mangal sutra. The luxury label had launched an Intimate Fine Jewellery collection featuring ‘The Royal Bengal Mangalsutra,’ and shared images of the new line on its official Instagram handle. Starting from a price of Rs 1,65,000, the caption on the post describes it as “Introducing the Royal Bengal Mangalsutra 1.2 and the Bengal Tiger Icon collection of necklaces, earrings and signet rings in 18k gold with VVS diamonds, black onyx and black enamel”.

The ad campaign features a woman in denim and a bra and wearing a mangalsutra, which has been launched as part of the collection. A mangalsutra is a sacred thread worn by Hindu women during marriage. The groom ties the auspicious thread around the bride’s neck on the day of their holy nuptial as significance that their relationship would be as auspicious as the thread. A typical mangalsutra has two strings of black beads and a pendant.