Reading the news Friday that Bhavitha Mandava has been tapped as a Chanel ambassador, AOC realized that we hadn’t posted the Chanel Spring/Summer 2026 campaign. The entire model list besides Mandava includes Aditsa Berzenia, Awar Odhiang, Cathy Simmons, Josephen Akuel, Latahlia Hickling, Loli Bahia, Marta Freccia, Noor Khan, Waleska Gorczevski, and Xiuli Jiang.
American photographer Alec Soth [IG],who worked with Blazy at Bottega Veneta, shot the campaign at La Pausa, Gabrielle Chanel’s South of France villa.
Irony runneth over for Bhavitha Mandava, an India-born and educated architect who moved to New York City to join NYU’s program in assistive technology. One day this gorgeous young woman with a big brain and a ‘smile to die for’ was scouted on the New York subway as an exclusive in Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta Spring/Summer 2025 show.
That event was only the beginning for Mandava. When Blazy moved to Chanel shortly after, the new girl went with him. In record time, this young woman ambassador for the uber-challenging, big rewards for women winners breaking through barriers in New York City would open the Chanel Métiers d’Art 2026 Show in New York City.
Where did we find Bhavitha Mandava the night of December 2, 2025? Back in the subway.
