Bollywood's Best Red Carpet Looks from the Past Award Season
The Filmfare Glamour and Style Awards last season felt like a long-awaited reunion photograph, and the carpet finally had room to breathe again. Deepika Padukone walked in a sculpted column gown that read more like architecture than fabric, while Alia Bhatt chose an ivory tissue sari that put heritage embroidery back at the centre of the conversation. The night leaned into craftsmanship over spectacle, and the cameras rewarded that restraint.
For Australian viewers, the past season's coverage unfolded against a familiar local rhythm. SBS's long-running commitment to Indian film content, anchored by the Special Broadcasting Service Act, keeps Hindi cinema in living rooms from Harris Park to Footscray. With the rupee sitting heavily against the Australian dollar and postage from Mumbai to Melbourne taking weeks, the practical appetite for studying stylists rather than importing their work has become a kind of national pastime. Indian-Australian couples planning weddings over the next twelve months will measure many of their choices against what walked those carpets.
Award season set the tone for a glamorous comeback
After two years of hybrid events and half-empty balconies, the past award season felt like the industry's exhale. Producers pulled out all the stops, sponsors returned, and stylists raided decades of archive to build looks that referenced Hindi cinema's golden age while still feeling current. The opening weekend of the IIFA awards in Toronto drew an unusually international guest list, mixing Bollywood with Tollywood and Punjabi cinema in ways the cameras had rarely captured before.
Australian audiences typically follow these ceremonies through delayed broadcasts or through streaming platforms that have quietly become homes for Indian content. The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, supported by Film Victoria, has helped amplify these red carpet moments locally, and editors at The Sydney Morning Herald now run weekend pieces on standout looks alongside their usual festival coverage. The cultural translation happens faster than it did even five years ago, partly because the local South Asian population has grown and partly because local couture houses now treat Bollywood as a benchmark rather than an exotic reference.
Designers who dressed the night's biggest moments
Indian designers dominated the carpet in ways that felt like a quiet victory for homegrown talent. Sabyasachi Mukherjee's custom lehengas remain the default answer to gowns, and the past season saw at least half a dozen stars lean into his archival embroidery rather than chase international houses. Manish Malhotra kept his reputation for making chiffon behave like water, while Falguni Shane Peacock pushed couture into new colour territories with electric blues and acid greens that held up under the harsh carpet lights.
| Celebrity | Designer | Silhouette | Defining Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deepika Padukone | Louis Vuitton | Column gown | Sculpted shoulder |
| Alia Bhatt | Sabyasachi | Tissue sari | Heritage zardozi border |
| Kiara Advani | Manish Malhotra | Sequin gown | Sheer overlay |
| Kriti Sanon | Falguni Shane Peacock | Mini dress | Feathered hem |
| Janhvi Kapoor | Anita Dongre | Cape ensemble | Mirror work |
The five looks above represent just a fraction of what walked, but they capture where the industry is heading. Gowns still hold court, but the sari has staged an unmistakable comeback, and fusion pieces like capes and sheer overlays have moved from experimental runway choices to mainstream carpet standards. For Australian buyers, the practical takeaway is that Indian designers now have a credible answer to every silhouette.
Jewellery that stole the spotlight
Couture without adornment rarely makes the cut on this carpet, and the past season's jewellers genuinely outshone the garments. Sunita Shekhawat's polki sets returned to wardrobes after years dominated by diamond chokers, while Hazoorilal Legacy by Sandeep Narang pushed jadau into contemporary cluster formations. Old world and new world traditions shared the same frame, and stylists deserve credit for letting the metals speak instead of competing with embroidery.
Mumbai's jewellers have long had a presence at international auctions, and the past season's pieces signalled renewed interest among Australian collectors. Sydney's Couture Week, held each May, increasingly features a South Asian pavilion, and Brisbane's Mount Ommaney shopping precinct has started stocking polki-inspired bridal sets that would have been hard to find locally a decade ago. The economics have shifted alongside the aesthetics, with pieces that once required a London or Mumbai trip now arriving through bonded warehouse logistics and direct online customs clearance.
Menswear on the rise
For too long, the men's carpet leaned on the same navy tuxedo, but the past award season changed the conversation. Ranveer Singh continued his role as the industry's most unpredictable dresser, layering patterns in ways that should have clashed but didn't. Vicky Kaushal settled into a series of structured sherwanis that felt quietly timeless, and Kartik Aaryan committed to vintage Bollywood tailoring with high-waisted trousers and silk waistcoats.
Veteran actors also returned to the carpet with a confidence that reminded younger stars what endurance looks like under the lights. Anil Kapoor walked into the room in a black velvet jacket that landed somewhere between Studio 54 and a Mumbai wedding, and the easy assurance of his look reflected a broader truth about personal style and persistence in any field, a sentiment echoed in this veteran profile. Australian menswear retailers have already started stocking more sherwani options in response, with several Melbourne tailors reporting that sherwani hires during the spring wedding season have nearly doubled.
Looks that sparked debate
No award season passes without controversy, and the past one saw genuinely heated conversation. Janhvi Kapoor's choice to wear a hand-painted Anamika Khanna lehenga that blended Mughal motifs with modern tailoring drew criticism from historians who felt the imagery should not be repurposed for fashion, but the designer defended her artistic license on social media within hours. Nora Fatehi's fully sheer sari at a post-awards show sent social media into overdrive, with debates splitting between body autonomy advocates and traditionalists who accused stylists of pushing too far.
These conversations are not new, but the speed at which they travelled was remarkable. Australian commentators on Threads weighed in within hours, and SBS Hindi picked up several of the more nuanced takes for its weekend broadcast. The willingness to engage with difficult questions about representation and respect, even from thousands of kilometres away, has become a defining feature of how the diaspora follows the industry, and Australian media outlets have responded with longer features rather than dismissive takes.
Practical ways to bring the carpet home
Watching from Brisbane or Melbourne is one thing, but recreating the look in your own wardrobe is another. The past award season was remarkably generous with inspiration that does not require a Bollywood budget, and the pieces that travelled best tended to be the ones built around texture, fit, and a single statement accessory. Mecca Maxima stores in Chadstone and Westfield Sydney now stock several of the highlighter palettes the carpet makeup artists favoured, and bridal rental houses in Parramatta have quietly added Manish Malhotra-inspired dupattas to their edit.
A few suggestions for fans looking to invest their time and money well:
- Borrow one floral hair accessory from the carpet and pair it with jeans for daytime polish.
- Choose a long-lasting matte lip instead of the heavy gloss that dominated in previous years.
- Mix textures in unexpected ways, such as a tissue sari paired with a denim jacket for casual events.
- Invest in one statement jadau piece rather than matching every metal in the same outfit.
- Use the Filmfare and IIFA YouTube channels to study how the carpet was posed and styled, not just what was worn.
- Save screenshots into a private album and revisit them with your tailor ahead of wedding season.
The choice to study rather than chase exact replicas has become something of a movement, especially among Gen Z fans in Adelaide and Perth who started outfit-club accounts around past looks.
The next twelve months will see the past award season's standout pieces filtered through local tailors, beauty counters, and bridal appointments across the country. Promotional styling for upcoming films like Baby is expected to borrow liberally from the past carpet, and our baby trailer analysis breaks down what fans should expect from the next wave of red carpet tie-ins. The carpet has become a usable archive rather than a distant fantasy, and Australian fans who treat it like a reference library often end up with looks that travel far beyond the broadcast.
