It helps to be clear about what Raja Ravi Varma did. Yes, he painted women in saris, but the outcome of that spread far beyond the canvas. He standardised the appeal of the the sari across the board and, alongside it, how the Indian woman would be seen in it. He fixed the tilt of the head, the weight of the drape, the distance between viewer and subject. He took mythological figures and gave them skin, volume, eternal poise. Then, through lithographic prints, he multiplied them. Mass circulation did the rest. In the world of art and image in India, there is no one more iconic than Varma, who is also known as ‘The Father of Modern Indian Art.’ This is why he keeps returning in fashion; not that he ever left. His work underpins how Indian femininity has been visualised for over a century—in calendar art, cinema and advertising—and fashion has inherited that archive.
While the Metropolitan Museum of Art does not exhibit Varma’s works, during the 2026 MET gala, his iconic imagery found its way into the most photographed corridor of the building: the Met Gala red carpet. The theme of the red carpet was ‘Fashion is Art’, and several Indian attendees and designers appeared to draw, directly or obliquely, from Varma’s visual language.
Isha Ambani at the 2026 Met Gala.Gilbert Flores/Getty Images.
Isha Ambani, in a structured Gaurav Gupta sari and styled by Anaita Shroff Adajania, worked with structure. The gold tissue sari was not draped in the conventional sense but engineered, fixed, held in suspension. The pallu rose over the head and stayed there, forming a controlled arc: a throwback to Varma’s Padmini, ‘the Lotus Lady’. In the original painting, the drape is fluid and falls in a way that frames the body and romanticises the figure. Gupta removes the fall and keeps the frame. The result is closer to sculpture than clothing. Perhaps even an ode to another one of the artists painting of Woman Holding a Fruit was referenced and alas Ambani was seen holding Subodh Gupta’s work of art, a mango.
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