Almost two months ago, Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor was announced as the new face of Dior, joining the likes of BLACKPINK's Jisoo, SEVENTEEN's Mingyu, Rosalía, and more. Though there are many names on the list of Dior ambassadors, Kapoor's marks a first — she is the first South Asian to be named ambassador for the French brand, signaling a momentous occasion for the maison. While the impact of her appointment is indelible, some might say it's hardly a surprise — including Kapoor herself.
"This partnership is a very natural culmination of the relationship I've had with Dior since I was 23 years old," Sonam Kapoor says in an interview with Teen Vogue. "I've been very grateful to the brand since I started working." This start for the actor came at a young age, when she debuted in her first film, Saawariya, in 2007. Her relationship with Dior, though, truly started to blossom with her 2010 production Aisha — Bollywood's adaptation of Clueless (and, in turn, Jane Austen's Emma), where Kapoor played India's version of Alicia Silverstone's iconic character Cher Horowitz.
"Dior lent us multiple costumes, lots of handbags, basically everything for the main character," Kapoor says. "In addition to all the vintage that I wore in the film, all the current season pieces were also by Dior. Since then, I've had a strong relationship with the brand." In the end, the film, which was produced by Kapoor's older sister Rhea, included 60 different pieces from the French brand featured on different characters.
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While clothing and costuming have always been a major part of Bollywood, Aisha marked the first time that a film fully integrated a luxury fashion brand into its production, as opposed to just incorporating one-off high-end accessories or mass-market products. The film also solidified Kapoor as the country's number one fashionista, with Aisha's eclectic and experimental styling — brand new to the Indian market at the time — still carrying an impact over a decade later.
Kapoor's start in the film industry aligned perfectly with a time of significant change for India's place in the fashion world. Vogue India released its first issue in September of 2007, just in time for her Bollywood debut, and she fondly reminisces on her first official photoshoot with iconic French photographer Patrick Demarchelier for the publication. "All these magazines and brands were coming to India, and it happened at the same time as I came into the industry," she tells Teen Vogue. “It was all at the nascent stages, and I was in the right place [and] the right time. I captured that, and I embraced it wholeheartedly. I wasn't scared of it, and I think because of that, it propelled me into this space of fashion quickly because I loved it all so much.”
Fearlessness and passion for clothes continuously brought Kapoor to new heights as she acted as her own stylist for her early years in the industry. Those days are long gone, and for her Dior ambassadorship shoot, she was styled by her sister Rhea, but they were formative for the star and her relationship with the world of fashion.
"I went to fashion shows, went online searching through photographs, and I was constantly sending messages to designers and asking them to lend me clothes," she recalls. "I also collected vintage and secondhand clothes from brands like Carolina Herrera. When I would wear those things, it was very different from what other actors were doing at the time, but I didn't realize it because when you're young, you just want to try to be yourself as much as you can." At the time, few were leaving their fashion zones in India, and American designers were largely unfamiliar territory.
By 2011, Kapoor was attending her first Cannes Film Festival and was emailing every designer on her radar. "Jean Paul Gaultier was the only one who said, 'Okay, I will dress you.'" The actor hit the red carpet outfitted in a white couture gown and a big smile, marking the first of many iconic appearances in Cannes. "And just like that, all the designers said, if Jean-Paul Gaultier is dressing her, we'll dress her," she quips now.
Though Kapoor played a key hand in heralding Western luxury into India, she has always embraced her Indian fashion roots beyond what was trendy in Bollywood. "I wasn't just wearing sequined saris," she says. "I wanted to wear Anamika Khanna, I wanted to wear Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, I wanted to wear Tarun Tahiliani."
These designers Kapoor mentions are notably invested in carrying forward the age-old legacies of traditional Indian textile arts and heritage crafts. "I liked that marriage of accepting and understanding the Western eye while at the same time promoting a classic Indian aesthetic," Kapoor explains, citing a style that she was alone in embodying during the 2010s but has now become the worldwide phenomenon known as Indo-Western style.
This love for Indian aesthetics and heritage textile history ties nicely into her partnership with Dior, a fashion house that has long looked to India for inspiration and celebrates the artisan work being done in the country. "Every couture house from Armani to Dior to Valentino to Chanel has embroidery done in India," Kapoor says. "There's nobody like Indian artisans, and the level of skill that we have here is unlike anywhere else in the world. While [the] final pieces are assembled in Paris, everything else is embroidered in India. More people are finally recognizing that, but I think everybody has shied away from it except for Dior."
Dior's creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri's relationship with Indian artisans dates back to her time designing for Fendi in the early 1990s, during which she began her partnership with the textile and embroidery house Chanakya International. Since Chiuri joined Dior in 2016, she has championed ethical and feminist practices for artisans, diving deeply into the hundreds of distinct craft traditions found across India and investing in textile art education.
In 2015, Chiuri and Dior worked with Chanakya International's artistic director, Karishma Swali, to establish the Chanakya Foundation School, which has since educated over 1,000 women and girls of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds in the art of embroidery. "The biggest push for this recognition of Indian artisans has come from Maria Grazia, and that's why I'm so proud to be a Dior ambassador. She's truly championed Indian artisans, and the exposure is important," Kapoor says of the partnership. “If we don't encourage it, it will die.”
Kapoor's appointment at Dior comes at a time when Indian fashion has made global mainstream news for the first time as A-list celebrities began to explore South Asian trends and Barbie even received a Diwali makeover. For Kapoor, it's high time South Asian fashion received its due internationally. "We are massive consumers, and we're the largest population in the world," she says. "There are South Asians everywhere. I'm glad that there's now someone at every major fashion house from an Indian standpoint."
While Kapoor's ambassadorship may mark a crowning moment for the actor after nearly two decades of work, her time spent boldly experimenting with style was unmatched by her peers, carving a new path for what is now possible for fashion in India way beyond its borders.
