SINGAPORE - Jeans are in the crosshairs once again. Not a year since American actress Sydney Sweeney’s controversial American Eagle denim campaign, another pair of casual bottoms at the Met Gala in New York has come under scrutiny.

Indian model and Chanel ambassador Bhavitha Mandava made her debut at the annual ball on May 4 in jeans and a quarter zip, immediately dividing the internet. The outraged have accused the French fashion house of racism, dressing the 26-year-old in rags to the other attendees’ riches. By contrast, her fellow ambassadors Margot Robbie, Jennie, Ayo Edebiri and Gracie Abrams came in gowns of golden lamé, feathers, sequins and embroidered crystals.

Defenders of Mandava’s look insist on the soundness of the idea. In the buffet of default gowns, she stood out more.

The discourse is complicated by the model’s backstory. The look is a callback to Mandava’s viral opening walk at Chanel’s 2025 Metiers d’Arts show, staged in an abandoned subway station in New York.

The model appeared then in jeans and a similar half-zip sweater, one hand in her pocket. That breezy walk coupled with the crowd-pleasing story of her discovery by a modelling agent on a subway platform the year before, catapulted the New York University graduate to internet fame. The look is her signature.

Mandava, who is the first Indian model to open a Chanel show, told British Vogue of the Met Gala look: “I had to pause when I saw the sketch, because that subway show was already one of the most significant nights of my career.

“Turning it into something reimagined for the Met felt like carrying...