Filmmaker Karan Johar made his Met Gala 2026 debut in a vivid Manish Malhotra ensemble which drew inspiration from the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma, honouring this edition’s theme of “Costume Art”.
The largely black garment is dominated by “hand-painted detailing executed in gold by traditional artisans, applied directly onto the garment as a painter would work on canvas”.
The ensemble celebrates some of Raja Ravi Varma’s most iconic works such as Hamsa Damayanti, Kadambari, Arjuna and Subhadra, and There Comes Papa.
His Met Gala debut, Karan Johar said, had to feel personal.
“I didn’t want to arrive here trying to explain India. I wanted to arrive feeling like myself and that automatically brings everything I come from with it… And the moment it felt personal, it became Indian, because that’s where everything I know comes from. Every story I’ve told, every film I’ve made, every emotion I’ve tried to put on screen has come from this place,” said the director, who made his filmmaking debut known with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998, in a statement.
So embodying Raja Ravi Varma’s works felt natural.
“Raja Ravi Varma felt right because his work does something I’ve always tried to do in cinema. Ravi Varma painted feelings. The way a sari falls, the way a figure holds itself, the light on a face that is somehow both divine and completely human. I’ve grown up with those images without always knowing it. They live in you before you can name them. This look is my way of wearing that inheritance and I think that’s the most honest thing I could have done for my first MET. To arrive not with a concept, but with a feeling I’ve carried my whole life and finally found the right form for,” he added.
Karan Johar, who has worked with Manish Malhotra innumerable times in his almost 30-year career, said “no translation” is needed between him and the master designer.
“We’ve worked together for so long that there’s an instinct there. I knew if I was doing this, it had to be with him.”
Besides Karan Johar, India personalities such as Ananya Birla, Jaipur royal siblings Princess Gauravi Kumari and Sawai Padmanabh Singh, Manish Malhotra, the designer himself, as well as entrepreneurs Sudha Reddy and Ananya Birla made their presence felt at the Met Gala 2026.
Also Read | Met Gala 2026: Kerala-Based Brand To Roll Out The Red Carpet For The Fourth Time
