The Most Interesting Fashion Stories from India on the Met Gala 2026 Carpet

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Benefit, aka The Met Gala, has been held on the first Monday of May every year since 1948. For most of that history, India barely registered on its steps. Then, over the last few years, something shifted. In 2025, actor Shah Rukh Khan made his debut in Sabyasachi. Diljit Dosanjh followed in Prabal Gurung, and Isha Ambani returned for a sixth time. This year, with the theme set to ‘Costume Art’ and the dress code ‘Fashion is Art’, the Indian contingent arrived with the most considered set of looks it has put together yet. For most guests on the carpet, the brief meant sculptural silhouettes and body-conscious couture. Whereas, for the Indians in the room, it translated into something more specific: 1,200 hours of handwork on a single saree; a sarpech from the Nizam of Hyderabad’s archive placed at the back of a blouse set with a mother's heirloom diamonds; and a grandmother's pink chiffon saree reconstructed, stitch by stitch, into a couture gown. Here are five looks with the most interesting stories behind them.

Isha Ambani's Blouse Was an INR 200-Crore-Archive Worn as Couture

Isha Ambani stepped onto The Met Gala carpet for the sixth time, and for the third consecutive year, she wore an Indian designer. Her look, styled by Anaita Shroff Adajania, was a custom Gaurav Gupta saree featuring over six yards of Banarasi tissue silk handwoven in pure gold threads by master artisans at Swadesh, with hand-painted pichwai-inspired motifs along its border by master artist Trilok Soni. Over 50 artisans worked on the saree, dedicating more than 1,200 hours to its completion.

The blouse was densely set with over 200 old mine-cut diamonds from Nita Ambani's private collection, pieces gathered over decades as gifts marking personal milestones, alongside rare emeralds and polki, with the total exceeding 1,800 carats. Adajania described the result as a piece deeply rooted in heritage yet striking in its presence. At the back of the saree was a historic sarpech (a traditional Indian turban ornament) from the collection of the Nizam of Hyderabad, set in the kundan technique with antique emerald beads and rose-cut and table-cut diamonds, with intricate meenakari enamel work on its reverse. The gajra in her hair was handcrafted over 150 hours from paper, copper, and brass by Sourabh Gupta. She carried a mango sculpture by Subodh Gupta inside a crochet bag. The look was valued at approximately INR 200 crore.

Gauravi Kumari Wore Her Grandmother Gayatri Devi's Actual Saree

For her Met Gala debut, Princess Gauravi Kumari of Jaipur wore a Prabal Gurung gown constructed from Maharani Gayatri Devi's own pink chiffon saree. Gayatri Devi, once described by Vogue as one of the ten most beautiful women in the world, wore soft pastels and cascading pearls throughout her life. The gown retained the soul of the original drape while evolving it into a structured red-carpet silhouette. Her jewellery followed the same logic: Layers of pearls, uncut diamonds, and rubies sourced from Jaipur's ateliers, with ear chains, stacked bangles, and rings completing the look. Beside her, Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh wore a richly embroidered velvet coat over a tailored bandhgala, its back carrying a large sun motif referencing the Suryavanshi lineage of Jaipur's royal family, with polki and jadau jewellery worked through the look as buttons and layered accents.

Karan Johar's Debut Was a Six-Foot Painting

Producer and filmmaker Karan Johar made his Met Gala debut in a custom Manish Malhotra ensemble inspired by the works of Raja Ravi Varma, the 19th-century painter credited with bringing European oil painting techniques to Indian subjects and producing some of the most iconic depictions of scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The coat ran to six feet in length, its surface carrying reproductions of Varma's compositions in embroidery, alongside architectural elements including pillars, lotuses, and swans worked into the detailing. Johar described the look as framed in eternity, noting that Varma's work does something he has always tried to do in cinema — bring the mythological into the human.

Manish Malhotra Put His Makers' Names on His Own Back

For his second consecutive Met Gala appearance, Manish Malhotra wore a heavily embroidered bandhgala paired with an architectural cape built over 960 hours by more than 50 artisans across Mumbai and Delhi, with the names and signatures of those artisans embroidered directly into the garment alongside references to Mumbai's cinematic landmarks, worked in dori, zardozi, chikankari, and kasab embroideries.

Sudha Reddy's Look Took 3,459 Hours and Carried an INR 125 Crore Stone

Sudha Reddy wore a custom Manish Malhotra creation titled The Tree of Life, built over 3,459 hours by more than 90 artisans, drawing from the Machilipatnam style of kalamkari, the 3,000-year-old hand-painted textile tradition from Andhra Pradesh. The royal blue velvet corseted bodice carried gold and ivory botanical embroidery in zardozi, marodi, and resham, with a sheer tulle cape and a handcrafted metal installation at the back centred on the Kalpavriksha motif, incorporating Telangana symbols including the Palapitta bird and the Tangedu flower. Her necklace, the Queen of Merelani, centred on a 550-carat deep violet-blue tanzanite from Tanzania's Merelani Hills, is valued at USD15 million (approx. INR 125 crore).