Ujjwala Raut on the road to global ramps: Visibility alone isn’t enough for Indian models

Last year 25-year-old Bhavitha Mandava was discovered by chance in a New York City subway by Matthieu Blazy’s (artistic director, Chanel) team at Chanel. The moment altered the trajectory of her life. Born and raised in India, Mandava had moved to New York to study at NYU. Months later, she became the first Indian model to open Chanel’s Métiers d’Art 2025–26 show – staged, poetically, at a NYC subway stop, the very site where she was first spotted. Before that landmark moment, she had already walked for Bottega Veneta, Dior and Courrèges.Indian faces on global runways are not new. Over the decades, models such as Anjali Mendes, Kirat Young, Marielou Phillips, Lakshmi Menon and Ujjwala Raut have walked for fashion powerhouses including Hermès, Dolce & Gabbana, Jean Paul Gaultier and Pierre Cardin, laying the groundwork for the new generation. Ujjwala, in particular, was among the earliest Indian models to walk for Yves Saint Laurent in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We speak to her about that era, the shifts since, and why representation today still needs to move beyond visibility.‘Back in the day, we were just sent to the fashion houses’Ujjwala’s earliest memories of Paris fashion belong to a very different era. Soon after arriving in Paris, she landed her first show – Hermes in 1997. Another breakthrough moment was when she walked for YSL in 2002. “It started with me first doing that final show of Monsieur Saint Laurent which happened in Pompidou. There were maybe over a hundred outfits that were displayed with all the supermodels walking the show and that was actually my first introduction to YSL. At the time, the system was starkly different. We were just sent to the fashion houses, and I was asked to go to YSL, and they brought me straight to the trials,” she shares. ‘Most of the time, the issue was that designers felt I was too beautiful’Indian representation was sparse, almost incidental back then. “Monsieur Saint Laurent mainly worked with a lot of African girls, and there were maybe one or two Indian girls. My first show for YSL (in 2002) was his last show as he was on the verge of retiring and then Tom Ford was going to step in.”New to the industry, Ujjwala found herself navigating unfamiliar hierarchies. “My booker, Don, was like, ‘Oh, you know, who Tom Ford is?’ And I was very new to the business. They really thought I knew all the names of the designers and who they were.”What followed, however, was not outright rejection but a paradox rarely discussed. “Honestly, most of the time, the issue was that designers felt I was too beautiful. That was an issue with Dries Van Noten, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake. They were like, ‘She’s too beautiful. No girls look like her’.”‘The Times of India played a key role in helping realise my dreams’Her own journey, she emphasises, was built without inherited privilege. “My story is about someone who’s not come from an industry that her parents were in. I worked my way and I proved myself again and again because I was good at what I did,” she shares. The turning point came early after she won a modelling contest organised by BCCL in 1996 and then represented India at the prestigious international model hunt contest Elite Model Look the same year, at the age of 17. “My life changed overnight because I had no idea what fashion was. Until then, I had never been in front of a camera.” She credits The Times of India for helping turn her ambition into reality. “The Times of India invested a lot in me – from my clothes to my flights. They played a key role in helping realise my dreams. Their dream was always to see an Indian girl on an international platform,” she shares.‘I’d like to see Indian girls alone in the campaigns’On how the industry has evolved, Ujjwala is measured. “It is getting better, but it hasn’t reached where it should have. I feel that Indian models need to have their own voice, beyond being a face walking for a brand. It has to be much more than that.” For her generation, visibility alone was never the end goal. “We wanted people to know our name and that we spoke multiple languages, we represent a country, and we equally deserve a place here.”She believes representation exists, but it lacks depth. “There is representation, but I would also like to see the girls alone in the campaigns. I had my own individual campaigns, brands, and appearances. So, I feel like we need more of that, not just an Indian representation,” Ujjwala explains.‘I don’t know how many buyers you get from these fashion weeks now’Ujjwala is candid about the spectacle now surrounding fashion weeks, especially their growing overlap with celebrity culture. “At least in the last year, I’ve seen people step away from this circus. I don’t know how many buyers fashion weeks even attract anymore, but one thing is clear – the people meant to work behind the scenes want to be front and centre, famous and seen,” she states.