Fashion fans who watched as Bhavitha Mandava opened Chanel’s Métiers d’art show, staged last week on a New York City subway platform, had no idea just how accidentally appropriate the setting was. Why? Because, as fashion lore has it, a New York City subway is where the 25-year-old graduate student caught the eye of a fellow passenger a year ago – a fellow passenger who just so happened to be Matthieu Blazy, who was then creative director at Bottega Veneta.

A shot of the Chanel Métiers d’Art show with Bhavitha Mandava. Courtesy of CHANEL

Mandava is from India, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture before moving to New York to study for a master’s degree in interactive design and media at NYU. As we’ve seen, fate had other plans. After that chance encounter on public trans

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