Aishwarya at Cannes this year because honestly it’s been two days and I’m still thinking about it.
Twenty-four years. She has been going to this festival for twenty-four years. I was probably in middle school when she first walked that red carpet and here we are in 2026 and she is still the person everyone’s talking about the morning after. Not one of the people. The person. That doesn’t happen by accident and it doesn’t happen by just having good taste in designers either. That’s something else entirely.
Her first look this year was the blue gown. Amit Aggarwal made it, named it Luminara, which sounds a bit dramatic until you actually see the photographs and then you completely understand why. It’s the kind of deep midnight blue that looks different depending on the light, and the structure of it, the way it fitted and flared at the same time, was genuinely stunning. What a lot of people missed in all the excitement was that this was also Aggarwal’s first time at Cannes. So she showed up to her twenty-fourth appearance and brought a designer to his first. That detail quietly says a lot about who she is.
Aaradhya was with her too. Her daughter, in a red gown with a cape, walking the same steps her mother has been walking since before she was born. I don’t know why that image hit me the way it did but it really did. There’s something about watching a woman return to a place year after year and then one day her kid is there beside her. It’s just a lot, in the best way.
Then the closing ceremony happened and things got really interesting.
She wore all white. Before you picture something safe and bridal, stop. This was not that. Chinese designer Cheney Chan built the whole look and it was basically the most dramatic interpretation of a white suit you have ever seen in your life. Big structured blazer with a deep neckline, crystal detailing on the front that genuinely looked like jewellery, sequin flared trousers that moved with her as she walked, a lace bustier underneath that you could just barely see, and then a feathered shawl over the whole thing like she had decided the night needed more and she was right. Plum lips.
Diamonds on her fingers. Hair in soft waves. Stylist Mohit Rai put it all together and the result was one of those looks that people are going to be referencing for years.
But here’s what I keep coming back to, and it has nothing to do with the clothes specifically.
She first went to Cannes in 2002. She wore a yellow saree. A Neeta Lulla saree, bright and traditional and completely different from every single other person on that carpet. And she didn’t do it to be different. She just wore what felt like her. Everyone else was in gowns and she walked out in a saree and nobody made her feel out of place because she never acted like she was. That’s confidence in a way that cannot be faked or learned from a styling session.
For a lot of people, especially here in India but honestly all over the world, she was literally the first time they ever paid attention to Cannes. Not because of a film. Not because of a director. Because of her. She made this French film festival feel like something that belonged to us too, like we had a seat at that table, and she did it without ever saying a single word about it. She just kept showing up and being excellent and that was enough.
Twenty-four years later and she still walks in like she owns the place, except she’s too elegant to ever actually own the place, she just borrows it for a few days and leaves it better than she found it.
Three looks this year. The blue Aggarwal gown that stopped everyone in their tracks. A powder pink drape that didn’t get as much attention but deserved more. And that white Cheney Chan finale that people are still dissecting outfit detail by outfit detail on every platform imaginable.
Some people peak and you can see it happening in real time, this slow fade where the cultural moment passes them by. That has simply not happened here. She is not coasting on a reputation. She is actively, year after year, giving people something real to talk about.
Fifty-two years old and she is still the first name out of everyone’s mouth when Cannes comes up. Not in a nostalgic way either, not in a “she used to be so iconic” kind of way. Right now, present tense, today iconic.
That’s just a different category of person.
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Sana has been covering film, fame, and everything in between for over a decade. From red carpets to rehab rumors, she brings nuance, wit, and an insider’s edge to every story. When she’s not reporting, she’s probably watching Koffee With Karan reruns or doom-scrolling celebrity IG feeds.
