Couture queen, literally!

You may remember her as the “mystery guest” who took the Internet by storm with her MET Gala 2024 look—and at the recently held British Fashion Awards—but Indian entrepreneur Mona Patel’s style journey started much before.

- Stuti Agarwal

Here's an OG question—joke on journalists: What is one sentence that gets them excited?

Answer: “I have never told this to anyone before.”

When in my recent interview with investor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and haute couture connoisseur Mona Patel preluded an early answer with “I don’t usually share this, but I am going to with you”, I knew for the joke to be true, because boy…was I excited to hear what followed.

The question was simple.

Tracing her childhood back to Baroda for me, the “mystery guest” who took the Internet by storm with her MET Gala look in the May of 2024 spoke about growing up a tomboy. “While I was fortunate to have very progressive parents who fueled my rebellious tendencies, outside of this fortress I was very aware of the inequalities between men and women.” As her way of finding equilibrium for herself and embodying the role she saw her father hold while making sure she wasn’t relegated to that of her mother, she decided to dress more like a boy, until it started to change when she turned 15.

The question then was what led to that change. “I went to an all-girls Catholic school, so I never had much interaction with boys other than those in the family or the neighbourhood. But I remember I was about 15 or 16 when someone asked me if I was a lesbian. I didn’t know what it meant so I went home and asked my mum. And once I understood I was able to distinguish immediately that it wasn’t sexual for me. The reason I chose to be who I was and dress the way I did was purely to do with the empowerment it gave me and my choices.” That stayed with Patel, and soon enough she started wearing earrings, growing out her hair, waxing her legs. It all slowly evolved… “that’s also when I waxed my moustache that I was totally rocking as an accessory until then!”

But there was a long journey from even that to the position of a haute couture savant that Patel now holds.