The ‘Made in Kerala’ Met Gala 2023 carpet: Why Neytt is the pride of Malayalis

Bollywood star Alia Bhatt made her Met Gala debut this year. (Instagram/Alia Bhatt Official)

The usual red carpet of the Met Gala was replaced with a creamy creation with red and blue streaks, as a tribute to iconic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who was also the theme for this year’s event.

With the Gala in full swing and pictures from the event flooding social media, a particular piece of information began spreading like wildfire. Turns out, the carpet, on which several famous names were walking and posing, was made by an Indian brand, to be specific, a brand from God’s Own Country — Kerala.

Suddenly, the Met Gala became a more relevant affair for Indians as people started looking up for more information on the brand which was going viral.

Neytt by Extraweave, an Allepey-based design house in Kerala, became the talk of the town overnight after their carpet took social media by storm.

Roadmap to Met Gala

Neytt was founded by Sivan Santhosh along with his wife, Nimisha. (Instagram/Neytt Official)

Comments were full of Indian pride and people praising the brand for its work, which was also sustainable — another factor contributing to its popularity.

Sivan Santhosh, who is the founder of the high-fashion rug brand along with his wife Nimisha, told South First he never expected their creation to blow up the way it did.

“I didn’t expect it to go this viral. It was kind of surprising,” he said.

“They wanted a proper canvas — a white-to-beige colour that is uniform throughout and is perfectly made. Another brief was that the weave must be tight because a lot of celebrities and people wear stilettos and heels on the carpet,” explained Santhosh.

“So, we had to make sure the weaving was correct. We use the right techniques. All the 58 rolls of yarn we made had to be uniform and error-free” he added.

Refuting some claims 

The Met Gala team asked Neytt to deliver a perfectly made white, beige-ish carpet with a tight weave. (Instagram/Neytt Official)

Interestingly, the carpet was designed by the Met Gala team, and Santhosh wants to clear the misconception that the added colours to the carpet were done by his team.

“We did not design the carpet. we only manufactured it. Some sections of the media have made it appear as if we designed it as well,” he said.

“We worked closely with the design team, but we never had any contributions in terms of the actual design,” explained Santhosh.

“Our contribution was mainly in the manufacturing stage, and in getting the colour of the fibre and the weave right. You know, the technical aspects. I cannot take any credit for the design,” he clarified.

Details and challenges 

Neytt sourced the whitest Sisal fibre from Madagascar to create the perfect carpet for Met Gala 2023. (Instagram/Neytt Official)

Starting with the most daunting aspect regarding the carpet, Santhosh highlighted the factor crucial to making the perfect product for the Met Gala.

“The challenging aspect this year was choosing the right yarn because this time, they moved from a traditional red to a lighter beige tone. So, we had to choose the best Sisal fibre and we sourced the whitest of Sisal fibre from Madagascar. Our workers had to hand-pick the best quality white fibres from the bunch,” he said.

Every roll is said to have gone through a manual correction and mending.

This apparently helped keep out minute errors, which were said to be hand-corrected by skilled women working with the brand.

Creation went viral 

Neytt was responsible for Met Gala’s red carpet last year as well. However, that piece of information went pretty much under everyone’s radar. And there is a reason for that.

“We went very low key last year as we did not want to publicise as such. We were not sure if we could use the credits because we worked through Fibreworks and not directly with the Met Gala organisers,” said Santhosh, adding that his friends nudged him to go public with his brand’s creation for the Met Gala this year.

“My friends were like ‘Sivan, you should tell people. They deserve to know that a carpet at this scale has been manufactured in Kerala in India’. So, this year we, we asked them if we can put it out there and they said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ and then we put it on our socials and it kind of took off,” he said.

Kerala’s pride 

The Met Gala 2023 carpet is Kerala’s representation at its best. (Neytt/Instagram Official)

“It is a huge representation of Kerala and that shows. People are very proud of the fact that a brand from Kerala is associated with the Met Gala in a big way. A lot of people from Kerala find a lot of pride in this and have been messaging me, showing how proud they are to be a Malayali,” said Santhosh.

He could not stop gushing about his team for executing a perfect work of art.

“The workers at Extraweave did a fantastic job. From the entire process including inspection and everything, at least over a hundred are involved. We were also very happy seeing our employees getting recognized for their skills,” added Santhosh.

“Last week, I went to the factory and a lot of people came to me saying, ‘We’re extremely happy that people know us now’. ‘Extraweave is known to everyone’. ‘We are so proud to say that we work for Extraweave.’ ‘What can we do next? Can we try something spectacular?’” he recalled.