Met Gala 2025: After butterfly dress in 2024, Mona Patel stuns with robotic dog

When tech entrepreneur made her debut at the Met Gala in 2024, she was the mystery guest who immediately turned heads with her butterfly dress and kinetic sleeves. Returning to Met Gala 2025, one of fashion’s biggest events this year, Patel managed to surprise guests once again, but this time with a robotic dog, that she brought along with her on the red carpet. 

After wearing a custom Iris Van Apfel with kinetic sleeves styled by Law Roach last year, this time around Patel wore a custom ensemble by American fashion designer Thom Browne for the gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; this was accompanied by a mechanical spinal cord by Lisa Jiang and Timothy Bowl. She paired the ensemble with a hat by Miodrag Gubernic, and shoes by Rene Caovilla – to complete the entire look.

While her ensemble was eye-catching, it was the grey robotic dog ‘Vector’, who came along with her that turned heads. It was made by MIT and was inspired by Browne’s dog by the same name. The dog, which converted into a bag, was accompanied by a 1,000-carat emerald-cut diamond leash on it, that turned into a sling when she put it on her shoulder. 

The Met Gala 2025 also saw Indian actors Shah Rukh Khan, Diljit Dosanjh and Kiara Advani walk on the red carpet. While SRK came in an all-black ensemble, Diljit was at his fashionable best looking all royal in his all-white ensemble. On the other hand, pregnant Kiara paid tribute to her child with a bejewelled umbilical cord connected to the framed heart on her bold gilded breastplate, a creation by Gaurav Gupta. 

It wasn’t only the stars on the blue carpet, but the latter itself that has its roots in the southern Indian state of Kerala as it was made by Alleppey-based design house Neytt by Extraweave, for the third year in a row. The 63,000-square-foot hand-painted blue carpet with a motif designed by artist Cy Gavin was accented by strewn daffodils, cascading floral barricades, and installations that shimmered with water and mirrored the hanging blooms above.