At Met Gala, it’s an India Inc takeover

Mumbai: India’s corporate elite stepped on to fashion’s most sought-after stage, the Met Gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, dressed with precision and intention to live up to this year’s theme, ‘fashion is art,’ even as Bollywood’s presence thinned.

Billionaire heiresses Isha Ambani, Ananya Birla and Natasha Poonawalla walked the carpet in dazzling style among global celebrities vying to present the most memorable looks of the night on the first Monday of May. For Birla, a first-time attendee, it was about expressing her contrasting interests. “We began with the idea of how something every day can be reimagined into something extraordinary. That became the foundation for the look,” she told ET.

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Birla wore a sharply structured blazer with a flared peplum hem, paired with a pleated gunmetal glass-organza ballroom skirt by Robert Wun. The centrepiece, however, was artist Subodh Gupta’s sculpture mask — a metallic, almost dystopian, headpiece assembled from everyday objects, its utensil-like forms layered into a skull-like visage.Wun’s couture and Gupta’s mask both “take familiar elements and give them a completely new presence,” she explained. “That contrast felt very instinctive, as I pursue both business and music. It’s really about perspective, about looking closer at what already exists and finding the extraordinary in the daily.”

The theme translated most directly in Poonawalla’s all-white look, anchored by a custom wearable white orchid sculpture by Marc Quinn, wrapped around a Dolce & Gabbana dress that she acquired at a Metropolitan Museum of Art auction and intends to donate back to the museum.

“The white orchid represents a quiet universality – beauty, resilience and peace that exists beyond borders,” Poonawalla said. “Marc Quinn and I collaborated on the idea of art that only exists when activated by the human form… It’s a new way of thinking about the life cycle of a sculpture. Combined with the precision of Domenico Dolce and his Alta Moda team, it represents a global synergy of British art, Italian craftsmanship and Indian perspective, captured by a Turkish photographer.”

Ambani chose to interpret the theme in a Gaurav Gupta handwoven sari with threads of pure gold, paired with a blouse embellished with diamonds and metallic zardozi embroidery sourced from her mother’s personal collection. She completed the look with a Subodh Gupta mango sculpture in hand.

Other first-time attendees included businesswoman Sudha Reddy and Jaipur royals Sawai Padmanabh Singh and Gauravi Kumari, who repurposed her grandmother’s vintage pink chiffon sari — a homage to Jaipur, the Pink City — reimagined into a modern gown silhouette by Prabal Gurung.