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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.This year’s Met Gala, the fancy-dress competition for the ultra-wealthy, was a memorable one. Not just because one of the world’s richest tech bros, Jeff Bezos, and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, served as honorary chairs—a first—but also because the evening of 4 May saw the largest Indian contingent yet ascend the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, with each attendee reportedly paying $100,000 to attend fashion’s most exclusive fund-raiser.Ananya Birla, Isha Ambani, Karan Johar, Manish Malhotra, Sudha Reddy, Natasha Poonawalla, Sawai Padmanabh Singh and Gauravi Kumari were in attendance, presenting their interpretation of the 2026 Met Gala dress code, “Fashion is Art”, which challenged guests to treat the body as a canvas, express their relationship with fashion “as an embodied art form and celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history”.Did the Indian contingent get the memo right? That depends on whether you believe fashion as art is best expressed through spectacle, symbolism or genuine risk-taking.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Pain is invisible; the sufferer has to make noise for it to be acknowledged, treated or accepted. Mumbai-based artist Koshy Brahmatmaj, 34, lives with chronic endometriosis, a painful condition that afflicts millions of women around the world.

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Elon won.Well, technically, he didn’t. A jury on Monday sided with Sam Altman and OpenAI, and their arguments that the statute of limitations had run out for Elon Musk to bring his whole “stole-a-charity” claims against his former AI lab partner-turned-corporate rival.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Real estate developer Sattva Group plans to expand its hospitality business amid rising travel demand and higher consumer spending on premium experiences.The Bengaluru-based company, which has co-developed JW Marriott Hotel Kolkata and Novotel Kolkata Hotel and Residences, is building a wider hospitality pipeline spanning Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Darjeeling.“We will invest 10-20% of our turnover into the hotel business going forward," Adrija Agarwal, president of Sattva Group told Mint. “We see hospitality as a serious asset class for us now.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.My phone and I, usually joined at the hip, were recently separated on a forest safari where mobile phones were not permitted. Sans a camera, I had to experience Satpura Tiger Reserve without capturing it through a lens. Freed from digital distractions, I gradually found my attention sharpening.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s food regulator has issued a show-cause notice to Fitshit Health Solutions-owned The Whole Truth over labelling that its chocolate products contained “no added sugar,” a move that could have a broader impact on how companies make and consumers perceive such claims.The notice issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) followed a complaint filed by rival chocolate maker Paul & Mike that The Whole Truth was using dates as sweeteners while claiming that no sugar was added to its cocoa products.Under FSSAI’s “non-addition of sugars” rules, such claims are not permitted if ingredients containing sugars are used as substitutes for added sugars. Following a Right to Information petition filed by the complainant in December, the Maharashtra FSSAI issued the notice to The Whole Truth.This tighter regulatory scrutiny could set a precedent how food companies make “no added sugar” claims while using dates, date paste and similar ingredients as sweeteners.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The first public walkthrough of Epochal: The Period of Pioneers, a joint exhibition by Chatterjee & Lal and DAG in Mumbai, was packed to the rafters last month. Around 250 people turned up on a hot Saturday afternoon to see this showcase of modernists such as K.S. Kulkarni, Benode Behari Mukherjee, J.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Swarup Mohanty spent 15 years building what he thought was a solid retirement plan. Then he asked an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to stress-test it.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Accor, the French hospitality giant, is betting big on the quiet shift in India's luxury hotel industry, where domestic travellers, not foreign tourists, are the primary engine of the high-end hospitality market.India’s luxury hotel boom still has room to run, according to the chairman of Accor India and group CEO, Ennismore, Gaurav Bhushan, who said the country is only ‘just getting started’ as affluent domestic travellers increasingly spend on high-end experiences and boutique hospitality.“The Indian luxury consumer is spending more on experiences than ever before,” Bhushan, recently appointed chairman for Accor in India, told Mint. “As long as you offer a real product and a real experience, people will spend.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Originating in the US in 1908 as a day to honour the sacrifices mothers make—and officially recognised in 1914 by then US president Woodrow Wilson—Mother’s Day, celebrated every second Sunday in May, has since grown into a global commercial event embraced by brands across categories. Yet amid the flood of discounts, flowers and freebies, the sentiment at its core remains unchanged: celebrating mothers and their unconditional love. Keeping this in mind, Lounge’s compilation brings together gifts that feel both personal and enduring.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Luxury home decor and furnishing brands are seeing a rise in demand in India as wealthy consumers splurge on larger homes, renovations and design-led interiors.From dinnerware costing several lakh rupees to collectable decor and contemporary furniture, affluent buyers are increasingly spending on their homes with luxury malls dedicating floors to what retailers describe as the "sleeper category".In New Delhi’s The Chanakya mall, an entire floor is now dedicated to luxury home and decor brands, including Jay Strongwater, Baccarat, Diptyque and Lladró, alongside Indian labels such as Janavi Home and Ravissant.The luxury home segment in India has seen a post-pandemic acceleration, with a fresh wave of global brand entries and expansions. Reliance Brands brought Pottery Barn to India in 2022, marking one of the early large-format bets on organised luxury home retail.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Demand for beer in India is holding up, but for United Breweries Ltd, rising costs and delayed pricing are squeezing margins.The Heineken NV-controlled maker of Kingfisher beer reported a weaker-than-expected performance for fiscal year 2026 (FY26), with revenue and profit declining even as volumes showed some resilience. A fresh wave of input cost inflation, particularly in packaging, alongside supply disruptions linked to the West Asia conflict, is driving the pressure in India’s tightly regulated beer market.Revenue from operations fell 10% to ₹1,746.3 crore in FY26 from ₹1,940.8 crore a year earlier, according to exchange filings, while profit declined 6.6% to ₹413.4 crore.For the quarter ended 31 March (Q4FY26), revenue was largely flat at ₹440 crore versus ₹442.7 crore a year earlier, while profit rose to ₹101.8 crore from ₹97.7 crore.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mapusa market, especially on Fridays, throbs with activity. It’s the day when smaller businesses set up their stalls in this market in north Goa, selling trinkets, gifts and other odds and ends. At the heart of it is the enclosed municipal market, which has its usual assortment of vegetable sellers.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Is there anyone who doesn't know that Monday, May 4, is Met Gala? Social media and conversations everywhere are awash about the annual fashion gala that has, in the last few years, turned into a global spectacle that's impossible to ignore or replicate. As is custom, the gala's theme this year is “Costume Art” that places focus on the "centrality of the dressed body".The dress code for the event being chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour, along with honorary chairs Jeff and Lauren Bezos, is “Fashion Is Art”.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.New Delhi: Luxury retailer Burgundy Brand Collective aims to cross ₹200 crore in revenuein FY27, as the Mumbai-based company bets on rising premium consumption beyond India’s top metros.The company, which has introduced brands such as Royce’ Chocolate, Onitsuka Tiger, Jacadi Paris and Ligne Roset to India, plans to invest about ₹100 crore to scale its multi-category portfolio, cofounder Samir Gadhok told Mint.Burgundy, which reported sales of ₹120 crore in FY24, also plans to nearly double its store count over the next three years to about 65 stores.The expansion comes as India’s luxury consumption story broadens to newer cities where affluent consumers are spending more across categories from fashion and food to home and lifestyle.Burgundy’s approach has been to build across categories rather than deepen a single vertical. "We want to be everything to one customer, rather than one thing to everyone,” said Gadhok.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In hotels across India, not much looks different at the first look. The check-ins are the same, the wedding crowds have not gone away and the weekend rush in Goa or Jaipur continues.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When NV Group launched Smoke Lab, it aimed to do vodka differently—ditching familiar citrus and berry profiles for local flavours.“When we started doing flavours, nobody was thinking about Indian flavours. Everybody was doing orange, lime, lemon and raspberry.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Open an online fashion app today, and you’ll find a ₹490,000 Gucci dress or a waitlisted ₹415,000 Prada leather shirt sitting alongside discounted streetwear and mass-market labels.This paradox isn’t accidental. India’s online fashion and beauty market is projected to reach $210 billion by 2028.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Visual: A narrow winding cobbled way in Paris. My voice: “It’s far worse to be poor in a rich country than to be poor in India. To be poor in the spectacular beauty of Paris is like Assamese art cinema trapped in a Wes Anderson scene.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The sudden exit of a chairperson is often accompanied by off-the-shelf explanations like ‘personal reasons’, ‘strategic realignment’ or the pursuit of ‘other opportunities.’ The recent abrupt resignation of HDFC Bank’s chair was a reminder that at the summit of corporate power, where the air is thin and minutes are curated, such reasons are rarely taken at face value.This is curious because a corporate organization chart resembles something between a pyramid and a theological hierarchy. At the base: employees. Above them: managers.