Bhavitha Mandava, a 25-year-old architecture graduate from Hyderabad, India has made fashion history after becoming the first Indian model to open a Chanel Métiers d’Art show.
The milestone moment unfolded on December 2, 2025, inside an abandoned Bowery subway station in New York City, where Mandava led the house’s 2026 Métiers d’Art presentation down the runway.
The achievement marks a remarkable career pivot for Mandava, who was on an entirely different professional path before a chance encounter altered the course of her life.
Once focused on architecture and design, she has now emerged as one of fashion’s most compelling new faces, stepping into one of the industry’s most coveted positions with her Chanel debut.
The show itself was a study in quiet subversion. Under Matthieu Blazy, Chanel’s visual language was recalibrated, pushing its house codes forward without completely dismantling them.
Ahead, everything we know about rising model, Bhavitha Mandav.
Who Is Bhavitha Mandava?
Mandava began her academic career at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, where she studied architecture, before moving to New York to complete a master’s degree in Integrated Design & Media at New York University, specialising in Human-Computer Interaction.
On LinkedIn, she describes herself as a New York–based product designer with a background in architecture, focused on blending human experience with emerging technology through storytelling and design.
Before modelling entered the picture, she was working as a communications specialist at NYU’s MakerSpace, deeply immersed in innovation, research and creative technology.
How Was Bhavitha Mandava Scouted?
Mandava’s entry into fashion was entirely accidental. Just two weeks before the Spring/Summer 2025 shows, she was standing on a New York subway platform when she caught the eye of then–Bottega Veneta creative director Matthieu Blazy. He cast her on the spot for the SS25 runway, catapulting her into the world of luxury fashion almost overnight.
When Blazy later took the helm at Chanel, he brought Mandava with him. She appeared in his SS26 debut in October 2025, marking the start of an ongoing creative partnership she openly cherishes.
Sharing a photo from the runway, she wrote:
“Exactly a year ago, I started modeling, and @matthieu_blazy was the first person I ever worked with. From my first runway to my first campaign, you made a life I never could have dreamed possible. I’m so honored to be following you to @chanelofficial 🤍.”
Her return to a subway setting for the Métiers d’Art 2026 show months later added a poetic symmetry to her rise. This time, she wasn’t a newcomer discovered underground—she was the opening model of one of fashion’s most prestigious presentations, a position traditionally reserved for long-established models.
Staged outside the main fashion week circuit, Chanel’s Métiers d’Art show honours the maison’s specialist craft ateliers and its most intricate workmanship. To open it is considered one of the industry’s strongest endorsements.
After the show, Mandava shared a sweet video of her parents watching her historic moment, a clip that quickly went viral. Comments poured in: “The excitement and pride on their faces was amazing ♥️” and “Nothing makes me more emotional than seeing proud parents 🥺🥺.”
With her historic Chanel opening now behind her, Mandava has firmly established herself as a major new force on the international fashion stage.
From architecture studios to one of the world’s most elite runways, her atypical ascent is fast becoming one of the most compelling model stories of the decade.
