There were gowns, there were capes, there were (quite literally) extra limbs on the carpet, but the real scene-stealer at this year’s Met Gala wasn’t stitched, draped, or even bedazzled. It was…a mango. Yes, that mango. The one you kept zooming into like a true detective. The one clutched inside businesswoman and philanthropist Isha Ambani’s 3.10 by Guggi bag. And no, unlike what most of us thought, it wasn’t a cheeky snack between photo ops—it was a sculpture by New Delhi-based artist Subodh Gupta and arguably the most deliciously ironic accessory on a carpet where the dress code for the night was ‘Fashion is Art’.
Another India-led talking point was the Met Gala’s ‘red’ carpet itself. This year, too, the carpet’s base was made in Kerala by Neytt. Conceived by event designer Raúl Àvila along with the Met Gala design team, including Baz Luhrmann and Derek McLane, it was later painted in New York to resemble a stone pathway with patches of moss green. Framed by cascading wisteria in shades of lilac, pink, and white, the setting leans into a romantic, almost dreamlike mood, in line with the Costume Institute’s theme, ‘Costume Art’. More on the Met Gala and the ongoing Venice Biennale below.
