New Delhi: Raja Ravi Varma, Ajanta cave paintings, Subodh Gupta, intricate embroidery and gemstones galore… art from the past and present and artists known and unknown came together in spectacular fashion at Met Gala 2026 where a band of Indian celebs made carefully curated style statements.
Isha Ambani wore a sari-inspired outfit woven with 1,000 diamonds and 800 other precious stones, Sudha Reddy sported a USD 15 million necklace, and Ananya Birla hid behind a glittering steel mask by Gupta.
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With the industrialists at fashion’s biggest night, Monday was filmmaker Karan Johar in a resplendent cape replicating Varma’s most famous paintings, philanthropist and entrepreneur Natasha Poonawala in an elaborate orchid-inspired gown, Gauravi Kumari and Sawai Padmanabh Singh, members of Jaipur’s erstwhile royal family, dressed in chiffon and velvet, and designer Manish Malhotra in a bandhgala with an ornate black and white cape.
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Each outfit was literally a work of art, taking many hundreds of hours to make with scores of artisans working round the clock to achieve the final look in accordance with the theme Costume Art, and the dress code Fashion is Art. In creating the outfits, designers used traditional embroidery like ari, dabka and nakshi, kalamkari, zardozi and hand painting.
The annual event, held each May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, was co-chaired this year by Beyonce, Venus Williams, Nicole Kidman and Anna Wintour.
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The Met Gala is strictly invitation-only, with individual tickets reportedly costing around USD 100,000. A full table can run up to USD 350,000 or more. The seats and tables for celebrities is usually purchased by fashion houses, luxury brands and corporations.
Johar, who made his Met Gala debut, roped in longtime friend and designer Malhotra to create his bespoke outfit, called Framed in Eternity. The power-shouldered vintage jacket was layered with dori embroidery, oil and acrylic finishes, varnishing and hand paintings to achieve the depth of Varma’s famously colour-saturated imagery, said a statement from his team.
The piece was developed over 5,600 hours, created entirely freehand by Malhotra’s lead artisans at his atelier without digital intervention, merging painting, sculpture and textile. It was crafted by over 50 artisans.
“It’s amazing to represent your nation, your culture and heritage on a global platform as magnificent as the Met, which truly signifies the work of art. Today’s theme really beautifully blends fashion and art, and I couldn’t have chosen a better debut on a theme like this,” Johar told reporters at the Met carpet.
Ambani, who has become a regular at the annual New York fashion gala, wore a Gaurav Gupta Couture ensemble that pushed the boundaries between jewellery and textile and the blouse alone took 500 hours and 40 artisans to complete.
The jewellery-integrated blouse was made with over 1,000 diamonds and precious stones totalling over 1,800 carats, including heirloom old mine diamonds, rare emeralds, and traditional polki and kundan elements drawn from her mother Nita Ambani’s personal collection.
It was paired with a handwoven gold tissue saree, the border of which was hand-painted by artisans and embroidered with motifs drawn from the Ajanta frescoes — among the earliest recorded depictions of the sari in Indian art.
A sculptural resin-draped cape, created by folding the gold tissue saree into a preserved, fluid structure, completed the look. The entire ensemble was crafted over 1,200 hours by more than 50 artisans, Gupta said in a statement.
Hyderabad-based businesswoman and philanthropist Reddy arrived in a regal navy blue velvet lehenga by Malhotra. The outfit featured intricate gold zardozi embroidery on the bodice, paired with a dramatic floor-sweeping long cape adorned with vibrant multicoloured floral and botanical embroidery in gold, red and green.
The centrepiece of her ensemble was a historic necklace valued at more than USD 15 million from her personal collection. It featured a Victorian-finished chain of large triangular and pear-shaped rose-cut diamonds set in floral clusters.
At the centre of the necklace is the Queen of Merelani, a 550-carat deep violet-blue tanzanite pendant from Tanzania’s Merelani Hills.
Malhotra designed the classic Indian bandhgala for himself and layered it with an architectural cape that took 50 artisans 960 hours to create. The ornate embroidery also had the signatures of the artisans and 3-D impressions of them at work.
“For me, this is more than a garment — it is a story of craft, memory, and collaboration,” he said in a post on Instagram.
Poonawalla, who also returned to the fashion gala, made a conceptual statement by opting for a sculpture — the Orchid Pectoral — crafted by British visual artist Marc Quinn, paired with a white couture gown by Dolce and Gabbana. The structure, cast in white resin, was conceived by Quinn exclusively for Poonawalla.
Anaita Shroff Adajania handled the styling for both Ambani and Poonawalla.
Birla’s look was a collaboration between Indian contemporary artist Gupta and British designer Robert Wun.
Gupta crafted a mask in stainless steel — his signature material — that served as both a disguise obscuring the wearer’s identity and a statement of foreboding strength, her team said.
Wun’s couture, reinterpreted the codes of everyday workwear, pushing the ordinary into the realm of the extraordinary. The look was styled by Rhea Kapoor.
The two erstwhile royals attended together in outfits designed by Prabal Gurung.
Gauravi’s blush pink, draped saree gown drew directly from the wardrobe of her grandmother, the legendary Maharani Gayatri Devi. Her gown incorporated one of Gayatri Devi’s own chiffon saris into the garment itself. She accessorised with layered pearl strings, a diamond pendant necklace, chandelier earrings and stacked bangles.
“Rendered in Jaipur pink, a colour that has always felt familiar to me, the look brings together softness, structure, and emotion in a way that feels very instinctive. There is a strong sense of memory, home, and Jaipur, which makes it so special,” Gauravi wrote on Instagram.
Singh opted for a black embroidered bandhgala paired with a teal blue velvet Phulghar coat featuring intricate floral and vine embroidery in gold and blush tones.
He completed the look with a multi-layered polki and pearl necklace.
The charity money collected at the high on optics event is used to support the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s operating budget, which covers staff salaries, conservation labs, and archival storage for over 33,000 costumes and accessories.
The gala is also seen as an occasion to enhance the cultural capital of the rich and often attracts criticism for it.
This year, the appointment of Amazon’s chief Jeff Bezos and wife Lauren Bezos as honorary co-chairs and lead sponsors has kicked up a major controversy with protestors calling for boycott over Amazon’s labour practices and its alleged connection to immigration enforcement (ICE).
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