Paris Fashion Week always delivers high fashion drama, but Katseye member Lara Raj turned heads at the Loewe show on October 2 in a way no one saw coming. Wearing a bright yellow halter dress, the singer sat in the front row, looking radiant — and wearing a full line of sindoor alongside a statement maang tika and bindi. Also read | Katseye’s Lara Rajagopalan: Meet HYBE’s first Indian-origin K-pop idol
‘Komolika will always be the reference’
Popular pop culture and fashion commentary Instagram account Diet Sabya was among the first to highlight the look, posting a video comparison that drew out the unmistakable aesthetic parallels. In typical witty fashion, Diet Sabya wrote: “Lara Raj’s ever-present bindi has now applied for a visa and migrated up as a full sindoor and maang tika. Brown hair with a middle part, the jhumkas, the makeup, all reminded me of someone far more iconic. The Urvashi Dholakia as Komolika Basu will always be the reference. With her twirling fingers, frosty lips, haveli ki chaabi and nasty schemes, she gave us the most iconic vamp television will ever see. None of y’all come close. The video edit showed clips of Lara sitting in the front row at Paris Fashion Week, alongside throwback clips of Indian television’s legendary villainess Komolika , known for her dramatic eye makeup, and traditional adornments. Over on Instagram, opinions were deeply divided. One comment read, “First in my bloodline to see performative sindhoor.
Another Instagram user pointed directly at the styling team, saying, “The diaspora identity crisis meets high fashion someone on the creative team wanted an ‘ethnic edge’ for Paris Fashion Week, so they raided the puja thali without knowing the baseline cultural context.”
