Books By Style

The Met Gala is one of the most important nights in fashion, with celebrities and designers collaborating on stunning custom looks. This year, the event chose to honor the fragility and beauty of historical fashion by exhibting gorgeous clothing items that can never be worn again due to possible deterioration. These pieces represent the natural world, its fragility, and eventual decay. Clothing follows a similar cycle as the delicate nature of the fabric materials, seams, and colors fall apart and fade away with age and use unless special care is taken to protect the clothing.

The Gala hosts a fundraiser to raise money for the Metropolitan Museums of Art’s Costume Institute, which works to help protect historical clothing like the pieces shown during the event. Actress and philanthropist Alia Bhatt wore one of the most stunning looks from the Met Gala, a sari designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee. The sari is the signature garment of India, handcrafted from techniques handed down through generations. It’s the perfect example of how to preserve historical fashion styles without destroying the vintage clothes. To craft this look Sabyasachi merged traditional craftsmanship with modern sophistication that expertly encapsulated the Gala’s theme.

Bhatt also worked with her longtime stylist, Anaita Shroff and Bollywood stylist, Lakshmi Lehr, to ensure her Met Gala look was on theme. The dress code for the Gala was named and inspired by the story “The Garden of Time” by J. G. Ballard, which heavily influenced Bhatt’s look and Sabyasachi’s design. The sari’s translucent appearance reminds one of the ethereal ambiance in the garden from Ballard’s story. The philanthropist looked like a fairy queen from the fantastical story with whimsical ruffles, shining sequins, millions of dollars in rare gemstones, and an impressive hand-embroidered twenty-three foot-long train. Her choice to highlight the sari honored the history, craftsmanship, and legacy from India.

Sabyasachi crafted the sari using traditional techniques and designed it to look more modern but with a whimsical flair, much like Ballard’s story. “The Garden of Time” combines fantasty elements with human psychology— the story represents human evolution and how creation always leads to destruction. Similarly, the story, Exit West by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, combines fantasy elements with real world issues like emigration and refugee problems. Hamid’s writing style mirrors Ballard’s in that they both use fantasy and fiction to analyze the threat of technology, politics, and human psychology.

Written to broaden readers perspectives on the refugee crisis, Exit West shows how boarders can negatively impact people’s lives. Hamid expressed his belief that people should be able to travel freely in the most magical way. Mystical doors would appear randomly in the world and transport people across the globe in seconds, making borders useless and bringing people together from all corners of the world. Hamid’s story shows how people could operate in one world instead of one nation.

The story follows a young couple, Saeed and Nadia, as they fall in love in a war-torn city on the verge of collapse. Left with no choice but to flee, the fledgling couple find a magical door that leads on a harrowing adventure while trying to find a safe place to settle. The couple struggle to keep their love alive through a dangerous and an ever changing world that’s entirely unwelcome.

Fans of Alia Bhatt’s glamorous look can actually buy the same accessories she wore to the Met Gala on Sabyasachi’s website. Readers interested in magical realism, romance, fantasy, or people who want to explore the nature of emigration and the effects of war will love this book written by Mohsin Hamid. Interested readers can buy the novel in bookstores and online.