After having his creations walked down the red carpets at the Oscars and Grammys last year, Indian designer Gaurav Gupta made his MET Gala debut in 2024 with comedian Mindy Kaling.
Gupta, who has previously shown collections at the Paris Fashion Week, has had celebrities from Beyonce to Cardi B and Shakira wearing his sculptured sari gowns to major events like the Grammy Awards and world tours (Beyonce wore a neon green sari gown to a Renaissance World Tour concert in August 2023). Closer to home, Gupta also designed Jr NTR's custom bandhgala with golden-tiger embroidery for the Oscars in 2023.
Gupta's MET Gala look for Mindy Kaling comprised a garment pleated and carefully constructed to resemble a delicate bloom in decay. Within hours of Mindy Kaling walking the red carpet, though, the Internet wondered if Gupta was recycling Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's 2022 Cannes gown for Kaling's MET Gala 2024 dress. Here's why the idea is not just erroneous, but misses the point completely:
Toolbox of a fashion designer
This year marked Gaurav Gupta's MET Gala debut. It stands to reason that for what is often known as "fashion's biggest night", the designer would create something he is known for—a statement-making sculptural piece— that is also in-keeping with the theme.
Pleating and embroidery are tools Gupta uses, to achieve some spectacular results. Consider this Gaurav Gupta garment worn by singer Shakira:
To break down the elements, yes Aishwarya Rai's gown had sculptural detailing and origami-inspired pleating—as did Kaling's—but these are tools (as opposed to the guiding idea) that Gaurav Gupta uses in his designs. They are among the elements that make a Gaurav Gupta garment a Gaurav Gupta garment.
Differences between Mindy Kaling's MET Gala gown and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's 2022 Cannes dress
Mindy Kaling's MET Gala dress was responding to the theme for 2024: The Garden of Time, as well as the story by JG Ballard that inspired the theme. Mindy Kaling herself described the gown as the 'Melting Flower of Time'. As poetic as it sounds, it is rooted in the theme for the Gala at multiple levels.
For one, the cape Mindy Kaling wore was designed around a single bloom as it starts to wilt and melt away. It is still beautiful in these early stages of decay, even as it can no longer shy away from the fact of its own transience.
By contrast, Aishwarya Rai's Cannes 2022 gown was built around the theme of 'Birth of Venus', among the world's most famous paintings more than 550 years after Sandro Botticelli made it to depict the goddess of love emerging from the sea as a fully grown woman.
Here's Aishwarya Rai's 2022 Cannes gown, for reference:
Notice that the mother-of-pearl-like luminescence of Aishwarya Rai's gown evokes the sea and shiny seashells, while Kaling's gown is in an earthier shade. They are both whimsical and the detailing in each is exquisite, but they speak to different themes.
A quick on the theme: The MET Gala is perhaps the most successful example of a fund raiser for fashion in the world. It is also very successful as a platform to pay homage to fashion and its most important practitioners. The MET Costume Institute organizes an annual exhibition alongside the Gala. The theme for the exhibition this year is Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion, where the beauties being brought out for the world to see are iconic designs. The exhibition opens on May 10. In line with the exhibition, the theme for the gala this year was The Garden of Time, inspired by a JG Ballard story about an aristocratic family that tries to hold on to their glory days by turning back time using crystal flowers.
Gaurav Gupta's gown for Mindy Kaling captures this pathos - the inevitability that even the choicest bloom in the garden will eventually fall.
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