Zendaya has delivered another major red carpet fashion moment while promoting The Odyssey, and this one comes with a South Asian connection.
For the final premiere of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Zendaya stepped out in a dramatic white gown complete with what appeared to be angel wings. The ethereal look fit right into the world of the film, giving goddess energy that worked perfectly alongside The Odyssey’s Greek mythology theme.
But there is another interesting story behind the dress.
Zendaya’s gown comes from the avant-garde fashion brand Matières Fécales, which was founded by designers Steven Raj Bhaskaran and Hannah Rose.
Bhaskaran was born in Montreal to a Guyanese mother and Sri Lankan father, giving the designer both Caribbean and South Asian roots.
Bhaskaran and Rose met while attending fashion design school in Montreal and began creating their own pieces using recycled materials before developing their high-end avant-garde brand.
And Zendaya wearing their design on The Odyssey red carpet was apparently years in the making.
Zendaya’s longtime stylist Law Roach revealed that he first saw the dress around two years ago, before The Odyssey had even been made, and already knew he wanted to save the look for Zendaya.
Roach reached out to the designers and asked them to hold onto the gown for him, and they did exactly that.
According to the brand, they turned down numerous requests for the dress over the following years because it had been reserved for Roach. He said the designers did not send it to anyone else during that time, making its eventual appearance on Zendaya even more special.
The story is another example of the incredible foresight behind Zendaya and Roach’s red-carpet collaborations. Holding onto a dress for roughly two years because you already know exactly where it belongs? That takes some serious fashion vision.
And when the moment finally arrived, the gamble paid off.
Between the flowing white silhouette, dramatic wings and mythological feel of the look, the gown felt right at home at The Odyssey premiere.
For South Asian fashion fans, the Sri Lankan connection behind one of the designers makes the red-carpet moment even more fun to see.
Zendaya may have been channeling a Greek goddess, but there was a little bit of South Asia represented on that red carpet too.
