Janhvi’s head drape at Cannes was less accessory, more Ancestral History

When Janhvi Kapoor made her long-anticipated Cannes debut, she didn’t just serve fashion, she served legacy. What made Kapoor’s debut Cannes look so quietly moving wasn’t just the shimmer of handwoven tissue or the pearl finish - it was the delicate, almost improvised scarf-style drape over her head. A gesture that was both cinematic and deeply cultural.

This wasn’t an accessory. It was language.

In South Asia, especially in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, a woman covering her head carries generations of meaning - reverence, modesty, femininity, cultural memory. But here, on a global carpet, the gesture felt like reclamation.

The drape evoked the traditional ‘ghoonghat’, worn by generations of women in domestic, spiritual, rural and ceremonial spaces and sometimes as tool of symbols of modesty and feminine virtue.

Women also used it to observe without being observed, to withhold expression, and to claim a kind of quiet power. The act of veiling could, at times, be more performative than internalized, a visual language women used to move through spaces safely while retaining interior freedom.

Janhvi’s version was stripped of performative religiosity or bridal excess. It wasn’t heavy with expectation. It was light. Soft. Intentional. A subtle nod to the mothers and grandmothers who wore their femininity draped, not displayed. It also echoed her late mother Sridevi’s iconic screen presence, whose characters (eg. Chandni) often embodied that exact blend of tradition and softness.

Known for marrying heritage textiles with architectural silhouettes, designer Tarun Tahiliani’s signature lies in his ability to elevate tradition without diluting it. The handwoven real tissue used for Janhvi’s corset and skirt was crafted in Benares, one of India’s most storied weaving hubs.

Tahiliani’s genius lies in letting the material lead and here, it led us straight into a cultural archive. There was a quiet refusal to over-Westernize. A gentle insistence on being of the region, even on a global stage. Couture, yes but contextual.

This wasn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. The hand-crushed texture, the raw uncut hem, the sculpted drape - all of it spoke to a deeper respect for process. Nothing was too precious to be untouched. The couture didn’t compete with culture; it collaborated with it. A marriage of equals.

In an industry that often asks brown women to be either hyper-modern or overly traditional, (never both) Janhvi’s head drape did something important: it collapsed the binary. It said, I can carry culture and still make it my own.

For the official premiere of Homebound at Cannes, Janhvi Kapoor stepped into a a mix of archival traditional indian jewels mixed with custom jade and jadao creations, one stitched in the quiet drama of Anamika Khanna couture and layered in centuries of jewel-toned storytelling. Khanna, known for her ability to modernize Indian silhouettes without losing their soul, dressed Janhvi in a bespoke piece that felt less red carpet, more heirloom with attitude.