Ananya Panday’s Krésha Bajaj gown is a cheeky take on a bodycon

Shimmering in metallic rose, Ananya Panday wore a hand-embellished Krésha Bajaj gown from the designer’s Dubai Fashion Week presentation, The Archive of Hidden Things. Her look was pulled from the third chapter of the showcase, Liberation, a segment focused on ease, exposure and movement.

Styled by Priyanka Kapadia Badani and team, the gown’s base was a muted, metallic rose tone, hand-embellished with dense micro-beading throughout the body and scattered larger beads on the straps, which glimmered with the light. The silhouette was elongated and body-skimming, with a slight flare at the hem. The bust was sculpted, while sheer panels traced both sides of the body from the underarm to above the knee, underlining the bust.

These sheer panels were threaded with crisscrossing cords of fabrics, creating controlled openings or cut-outs that revealed skin in clean, deliberate slashes. Cut-outs have cycled in and out of fashion since the ’90s, but their appeal has remained consistent: they inject a sense of ease and sensuality. While their popularity was revived during the Spring/Summer 2022 collections and moved beyond high street into cultural zeitgeist moments, thanks to Maddy’s viral black cut-out dress from Euphoria, they have also made recent appearances at Dior and Prada’s Spring/Summer 2025 shows, where bodysuits and skirts came spliced with jarring, precisely placed cuts and portholes. In Ananya Panday’s case, the cut-outs are integral to the dress’s architecture since they balance the ornate handwork with tailored exposure, making the display of skin part of the design and not embellishment.

Bajaj’s work continues to centre traditional Indian techniques—zardozi, aari and micro-beading—by reimagining them through a contemporary lens. The Archive of Hidden Things filtered this through a triptych: Revelation, Obsession and Liberation. Panday’s look captured the latter’s stripped-back confidence, anchored by strong lines and tactile embellishment.