Cannes 2025: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Wore Hinduism On Her Sleeve
Is she trying to send a message or is it simply an aesthetic choice?
There was a time when sporting religious symbols at an event simply led to people wondering whether they looked good or bad on the person. If there was any deep religious meaning to those symbols, it used to be personal to the person wearing it. The sad thing about the times we’re living is that now every single religious symbol adopts a meaning whether the wearer wants that to happen or not.
This year, for the two red carpet looks, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan - who has been a regular at Cannes - wore Indian designers. The first was a handwoven kadwa Banarasi sari by Manish Malhotra, reimagined with a couture gown silhouette and a handwoven tissue drape. As reported by Vogue India - the ivory and gold look featured a long, sheer train with intricate gold embroidery and sequin detailing that acted like a dupatta. The sari featured handwoven brocade motifs and hand-embroidered zari detailing in real chandi (silver), extending over the fabric.
She finished off the look with 500 carats of Mozambique rubies and uncut diamonds set. But what caught everyone’s attention was the sindoor on her head.
Sindoor is a traditional Hindu symbol of a married woman. But right now, it is also a political symbol with the recent response by the Indian government towards Pakistani government in the form of Operation Sindoor after the horrific Pahalgam terror attack.
Was Aishwarya’s sindoor a nod to that? Or was it just an aesthetic choice? Considering how she has never used fashion to convey a social or political message, I’ll go with the latter. But what resulted in me writing this article was the look that followed this one.
She wore a hand-embroidered Gaurav Gupta gown with an abstract rendition of the cosmos in bursts of silver, gold, charcoal, and black, accented with micro glass crystals. Wrapped around her was an ivory Banarasi brocade cape handwoven in Varanasi. The fabric was also inscribed with a Sanskrit shloka from the Bhagavad Gita on the back.
|| कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ||
“You have a right to perform your actions, but not to the fruits of those actions. Let not the fruits of the action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.”
Again, she tends to stay away from religion at least at international events, so this choice of wearing a Sanskrit shloka makes one wonder if it is more than a simple aesthetic choice.
As far as fashion critique goes, she looked nice enough in both of the attires. Nothing outstanding, per se, but good enough.