For his second consecutive appearance at the Met Gala, Manish Malhotra arrived in a look that placed his atelier directly on the carpet. The ensemble pairs an Indian bandhgala with a cape embroidered with the names and signatures of its makers, many of whom have worked with Malhotra across decades.
The cape turns to Mumbai, the city that shaped Malhotra’s move from cinema to couture. Across its surface are references to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the Gateway of India and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, alongside trains, taxis and scenes from everyday city life. The result is less a skyline tribute than a record of the city through which Malhotra built his design language.
The garment took more than 960 hours to create, involving 50 artisans across Mumbai and Delhi. Dori work, zardozi, chikankari and kasab are worked across the cape in white and ivory, giving the surface its relief and texture. The signatures of embroiderers, tailors, pattern makers and karigars appear within the embroidery, making the people behind the piece visible within the work itself.
There are also miniature figures in reclaimed resin: a master embroiderer mid-stitch, a tailor bent over a cutting table. These are small details, but they make the point of the look. Malhotra is not only referencing craft; he is showing the labour around it, from the cutting table to the final garment.
“This piece is deeply personal,” says Malhotra. “It carries my journey in Mumbai, from cinema to couture, and the hands of artisans who have shaped that journey with me.”
The cinema reference is present too, though handled through the city rather than through film stills or obvious nostalgia. Mumbai’s trains, streets and monuments appear alongside the craft details, linking the world that first shaped Malhotra’s eye with the atelier that now bears his name. On a carpet devoted to fashion as art, his answer is a garment that makes the makers part of the image. For Malhotra, fashion is artisans.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: vogue.in
