Designer Neeta Lulla Reveals The Story Of Silver Gown That Sridevi Wore Before Kylie Jenner

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A small stroller bag. One outfit inside. And a weight reading that stopped an airport check-in counter cold.

That is the image veteran costume designer Neeta Lulla paints when she recalls the moment she tried to fly a hand-crafted metallic mesh gown from Mumbai to Hyderabad in the early 1990s. The outfit, made for Sridevi to wear in the 1993 Telugu film Govinda Govinda, had just become the subject of a very confused conversation with airport staff, because a single garment, folded into a carry-on bag, weighed 25 kilograms.

Photo Credit: Instagram: @neeta_lulla

Thirty years later, that same silhouette is back in conversation. This time, because Kylie Jenner stepped out in a silver metallic gown that the internet immediately held up against Sridevi's look. The comparison spread quickly. And with it came Lulla's story.

The Craft Behind The Weight

The gown was not embellished in the conventional sense. No stones, no embroidery, no traditional zardozi. Lulla had constructed it entirely from metallic mesh - a material built from interlinking metal rings or woven metallic threads, assembled by hand. Every inch of it was crafted manually, without shortcuts.

"I made the outfit in metal, and the entire metallic mesh was hand-done and made with a single lining," Lulla recalled in a video that has been circulating widely on social media.

The result was exquisite. It was also extraordinarily heavy. Metal, even in fine-mesh form, carries a density that fabric simply does not. A full-length gown constructed from it, with a hood, as Sridevi wore it, would accumulate weight in a way that is easy to underestimate until you actually lift it.
Lulla did not underestimate it. She knew what she had made. What she perhaps did not fully anticipate was the airport.

When The Bag Spoke For Itself

"This outfit was so little that I put it into a bag, which was just a hand carry bag and carried it with me," Lulla said. The logic was reasonable. The gown, when folded, was compact. It was one piece, with a single lining. It looked, to the untrained eye, like something that would fit easily under a seat.

At the check-in counter, the personnel flagged the bag. The weight reading: 25 kilograms.

"Ma'am, this is a small stroller bag and it weighs 25 kgs. How is that possible?"

Lulla opened the bag and showed them. One outfit. No accessories, no shoes, no second garment. Just the metallic mesh gown, folded in on itself, dense with the accumulated weight of hundreds of hours of hand craftsmanship.

It is, as Lulla herself described it, a "lovely and funny memory." It is also a fairly precise illustration of what couture-level handwork actually involves - not just time and skill, but material consequence.

Why The Comparison With Kylie Jenner Matters

The internet's instinct to place the two images side by side was not frivolous. The silhouettes share a clear visual language: a silver metallic drape, a hooded neckline, a fluid structure that catches light in motion. That Jenner's 2022 look would echo a garment designed in India in the early 1990s, for a regional Telugu film, not a global runway, says something worth pausing on.

Indian costume design of that era was not merely functional. Designers like Lulla were building fashion, often with fewer resources, less visibility, and far heavier bags than their international counterparts. The craft was serious. The output was, demonstrably, ahead of its time.

Bottomline

Neeta Lulla did not need Kylie Jenner to validate a gown she made thirty years ago. But the comparison did something useful: it reminded a generation that Indian costume design has long been doing, by hand, what the world occasionally rediscovers and calls new. The dress weighed 25 kilograms. The legacy, apparently, weighs considerably more.