Baby Bumps, Stolen Jewels, and a Robot Dog: Desi Musings on the Met Gala 2025

The Met Gala is where the drama, the fashion, and every now and again, the casual cultural appropriation, unravel.

The Met Gala is where the drama, the 'statements', the eclectic fashion, the careless tea, the bombastic side eyes, and every now and again, the casual cultural appropriation, unravel. Wrapped in brocade, lace, and shimmer, no less.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

Once upon a time, the glitz-obsession in brown households was reserved for just the Oscars. Maybe a Grammy or a BAFTA—for those annoying film nerds (read Me.)

But the Met Gala was a relatively alien fandango in desi pop culture.

Until 2017.

That was the year our 'Desi Girl' Priyanka Chopra debuted at the Met, soft launching her videshi beau Nick Jonas for her desi fans—and leading us by the hand to the new world. Desis discovered the Met Gala for the first time, buried under PC's long trench-coat-dress-thingummy. (*Coughs and ahems in Ralph Lauren*).

That asymmetrical trench coat brought perfectly symmetrical joy to netizens for months.

Now, I have the wisdom of hindsight and I know the Met Gala is where the drama, the 'statements', the eclectic fashion, the careless tea, the bombastic side eyes, and every now and again, the casual cultural appropriation, unravel. Wrapped in brocade, lace, and shimmer, no less.

Like clockwork, I now tune in for the annual Met Gala as well as Oscars, and Cannes events—the usual holy trinity for the film and fashion gays, gals, and non-binary pals—no matter how much I hate their performative high fashion capitalism cosplay. I might rage against their elitism by day, but come night (or dawn), I’m a moth to the glitz flame.

The Met Gala is particularly unhinged and beautiful, and I may not even recognise half the celebs walking the carpet. But like any honest-to-IIFA-Awards desi viewer with a flair for melodrama, I love every bit of dissecting it.

Who, What, Wear?

This year's theme was “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style”, a powerful, timely homage to Black dandyism—think structured elegance, Zoot suit swagger, legacy-drenched tailoring. A kind of cultural commentary stitched with precision. Rooted in resistance, identity, and legacy, it should’ve been revolutionary. It was revolutionary, in a way. The Met is happening in Trump's America, after all, and even tokenistic rebellion of rich people has to be worth its weight, in likes and shares, or something, in times like these.

Also, we must remember it’s 2025. Representation and space for people of colour in the entertainment industry and their heritage in American culture (which this Met's theme portends to underscore) should not even need any more underscoring.

And yet, here we are, half-witting our way to the townhall on identity politics as we were too late for the equality ball.

The revolution is not being televised anymore. It's being digitised, analogued, algorithmed, digitally created, AI-edited, memed, reeled, copied on the blockchain, monetised, anesthetised, and home delivered to you in a cute little paper bag (because caring for Mama Earth is cool too, okay?) with free plastic Antifa stickers. It’s giving “Black Square on Instagram, but make it silk and Swarovski". No Cap.

Speaking of gems, the Gala saw 81-year-old Diana Ross dragging 18 feet of legacy behind her. The shimmering train that threatened to gobble the red carpet up whole reminded me of Rihanna’s “omelette dress” by Guo Pei, circa 2015. Colman Domingo radiated precision and poetic rage in a sweeping, custom, royal blue Valentino cloak. The look was a homage to Andre Leon Talley, former editor-at-large at Vogue. The legendary Met curator Anna Wintour had once lauded Talley as “a dandy among dandies.” (*Guffaws in Gucci*)

And then there was the K-Pop star Lisa, serving no-pants couture with what appeared to be the anti-racism icon Rosa Parks’ face—embroidered on her underwear. Because nothing says fashion-forward like accidental civil rights support. 

His Name is Khan, In Case You Forgot

The real reason, though, I tuned in at 2 am to watch a bunch of firangs strut their stuff and play woke though, was not them at all but for a few of our beloved own: Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra Jonas were both attending this year. (*Winks in leather jacket*)

I wanted "insider" pics. You know, the grainy, blurry, shot-to-hell ones with an almost VGA vibe. The ones with the red circle crudely drawn on what looks like a pixelated handshake. I wanted 'leaked' phone footage of awkward small talk, repeating gif videos of an errant eye roll, a swoon, or a sigh that a diligent 'paparazzi' sussed out in the edit. Was there a moment when SRK and Chopra were chilling, mid-champagne, in the museum's bathroom? Did their teams diligently keep them apart? Did Nick-wa jiju accidentally bump into the Badshah, despite it all?

Maybe these are just the thoughts of a chronically online, crazy person but I know I am not alone. Millennials who still care about both Bollywood drama and the Hunger Games of American fashion, are out there in the virtual ether.

Khan attended his maiden Met Gala in all black, obviously. I agree with the style critics calling the look somewhat basic, and yes, it could have been more dramatic with more desi design motifs and details.

But, I mean, come on. It's SRK. He made it work like you wouldn't even work your wedding suit.

And, can we devote a hot minute to his gender-risqué accessorising? The cummerbund (inspired by the desi kamarbandh) is a case in point. This is something you don't often see the old-school superstars experiment with. To deliver the dandy bling aesthetic, his stylists stacked signature 'Bengal Tiger' Sabyasachi jewels around his neck. There was even a cane for added effect, replete with a golden, lion-head topper.

At 59, Khan channeled a hot, South Asian Papa Legba, minus the broad-brimmed hat and smoking pipe.

Meanwhile, Mrs Chopra-Jonas turned up in a custom Balmain, replete with black-on-white polka dots all over. Together, their looks felt suspiciously in sync, like a cosmic throwback to their Don days when they were rumoured to have been paramours. Or maybe Madonna was right, and you DO only see what your eyes want to see.

Representation-Appropriation Paradox

As my deleterious daydreams wore off, I started noticing the others too. And there truly was a weird lot to notice. I saw Diljit Dosanjh in custom Prabal Gurung, channeling the suave, signature, Punjabi dandy. But soon, stories of diamond theft and colonial loot swarmed the internet. Apparently, Dosanjh's team had reached out to jewellery mogul Cartier to loan a piece—a set of diamond chokers—that had allegedly once been part of Maharaja of Patiala Bhupinder Singh's personal collection. It made sense since Dosanjh's entire look is a tribute to the same Bhupinder Singh.

The choker, allegedly part of the 'Patiala Necklace' set that Cartier themself crafted for the royal, went missing when the necklace vanished from the royal treasury in 1948, believed stolen. Parts of the necklace including the choker in question were eventually acquired by Cartier, which reset and refurbished the piece with substituted parts.

They have since had the necklace in their ownership. Not suspicious at all, right?

Anyway, the historic jewels are back in the news again in 2025 after Cartier allegedly refused to lend them to Dosanjh. Meanwhile, for the 2022 Met theme “Gilded Glamour", Cartier had lent the same jewels to Gen Z influencer and internet sensation Emma Chamberlain. Cartier seems to have conveniently forgotten their colonial loot shouldn’t just be reserved for (white) TikTok royals.

Robo Dogs and Baby Bumps

Moving on to Mona Patel, who pulled up at the venue with a robotic dog named Vector. Designed by MIT, dressed to the nines in a tux and a 1,000-carat diamond leash, robo dog was peak desi-tech billionaire cosplay kitsch. Natasha Poonawalla came through in a custom Manish Malhotra, which fused Parsi Gara vintage saris with a corset-cummerbund, embroidered jacket, and a lace cravat from Atelier Biser. Like Mrs Havisham, if she had good lighting and some joie de vivre.

Malhotra himself made his own Met debut in a sculptural sherwani-cape, glass beadwork, and high jewelry brooches that probably cost more than my organs.

While I wasn't a big fan of Sabyasachi’s look, I felt oddly jubilant on the whole to see Indian couture walk the carpet not as a cultural costume or prop, but as a statement. From sherwanis to opulent diamonds, from Malhotra and Dosanjh's fusion desi-dandyism to SRK’s curated necromancer-core—Indians represented desis of many shades, albeit with a few hits and misses.

In another quarter of the gala, Rihanna and Kiara Advani both walked in with their baby bumps, which—intentional or not—felt like its own poetic sidebar. In fact, it was pregnancy season all over this year with even a third attendee—model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss—strutting her body-conned bump.

Congratulations to the baby mommas aside, Advani’s sculptured Gaurav Gupta gold armour felt a tad dated, even though the ghungroo details on an “abstract umbilical cord” made up for some of the dismay. The Met is essentially a nerdily complicated and super expensive costume ball that exhorts old money, quirk, creativity, storytelling, and sometimes, even subversion. Having said that, it wasn't anybody's look or a costume that left much of a mark on me this year. Instead, it was a desi CARPET that stole the show.

Showcased as a centrepiece at the Gala—a sprawling 63,000-square-foot indigo masterpiece of brilliant blue—left many a designer gown in the lurch. Another desi export, the carpet was handcrafted in Alleppey by the Kerala brand Neytt by Extraweave. This is the third time they have woven a carpet for the Met.

Weaved out of sisal fibers sourced from Madagascar and layered with golden narcissus motifs designed in collaboration with artist Cy Gavin, the carpet quietly underscored the evening’s more sombre themes of identity, history, and self-fashioning.

Though many of the outfits captured this year's theme of light subversion relatively well in ornamental terms, the carpet became to me an underbelly —or facade—of something sinister that lies hidden. More than just a surface to strut on, blue weave became a subversive stage—linking Black dandyism to the humble Indian indigo’s colonised past, and spotlighting South Asian craft in a space of exclusivity and privilege that rarely extends beyond its own marbled eaves and halls.

But—and here comes my inevitable plot-twist of a spiral—while obsessing over fashion as resistance, over Black elegance reclaiming space, there was also a loud, gnawing dissonance at the back of my brain, emanating like skunk-stink from all the rotten bits of reality and news I bag up and cram aside in my brain.

The Capitol vibes at the Met were strong as usual. Here we have our very own version of Hunger Games-level indulgence in the heart of New York City, even as the US flagrantly violates basic rights of people in the name of Making America Great Again. India prepares for potential war. Gaza burns. We gawk, transfixed, at a 1,000-carat diamond leash while hospitals are bombed. I’m not blaming the attendees; nor the viewers. I too am one.

But panem et circenses—bread and circus (and fancy brooches too)—was always meant to be just this. One part dystopia, a hundred watts of dizzying, distracting glam. And we clap for the drama because otherwise we’d scream from the trauma that never seems to cease. 

(The author is an independent film, TV and pop culture journalist who has been feeding into the great sucking maw of the internet since 2010. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)