If your day has been centred around the Met gala red blue carpet and judging which celebrity got the theme right from the comforts of your couch, you’ll not mind us harping a little longer on the carpet itself. The blue-and-gold carpet, which somehow seemed to fit the dandy theme perfectly, came from a place far from the flashing bulbs and celebrity selfies: Cherthala, a serene town in Alleppey district of Kerala.
This is not the first time Neytt by Extraweave, a homegrown label with an eye on the runway and its heart firmly rooted in handloom, made its appearance at the Met. In 2022, Neytt designed a red-and-blue striped carpet for the In America: An Anthology of Fashion theme, and then in 2023, a swirly red-and-blue number painted atop an off-white sisal weave, made in collaboration with Japanese architect Tadao Ando for the Karl Lagerfeld tribute. Over the years, it has been something like a silent star on fashion’s biggest night.
“The first year, our workers didn’t quite realise the scale of what we were doing. But now, with all the media attention, they’re so proud. Their craft has gone global, and they’re overjoyed,” shares founder Sivan Santosh over a phone call. Not that the learning curve wasn’t steep. “The first year was definitely a challenge,” he says. “We had to get the weave just right—tight enough that no one trips, especially not in heels! Each year, we’ve levelled up in quality and construction.” Today, Santosh has been dodging media calls all morning, reiterating why Neytt’s superpower lies not in the rug’s fibre and finesse but its soul. “We wanted to build a brand focused on sustainability and storytelling,” he shares.
