Photographers Luigi and Iango [IG] share assignment duties with Inez and Vinoodh [IG] for V Magazine [IG] Issue 161 Pre-Fall 2026. Bhavitha Mandava is one of five models photographed for V Magazine’s project. Other models with ‘Fall Head Over Heels!’ cover[s] include Jacqui Hooper, Libby Taverner, Liu Wen and Sascha Rajasalu, all styled by B. Åkerlund.

Mandava wears Chanel [above] and Givenchy by Sarah Burton [below] in her cover images.

It’s very easy to look at Bhavitha Mandava and imagine her earning the title of ‘supermodel’ — as in ‘old-fashioned supermodel’ — not a quick-hit, modern digital wonder. Her star is soaring and from all we know, Mandava deserves any and all praise sent her way.

This young woman from India is beautiful, and possessed with a sensual elegance that is captured by Luigi and Iango. It’s their specialty.

Chanel creative director Matthieu Blazy must smile with a deeply-personal joy over the success of his protégé, discovered on the NY Subway just in time to walk Blazy’s Bottega Veneta S/S 25 Show in September 2024.

One other creative director jumped as well for Bhavitha Mandava and that’s Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior S/S 25 Show days later. It makes sense that the Chiuri team would also see high potential in Mandava, but she was not in Dior’s grasp for long.

Chanel’s Blazy and Nair: Both Have Alpha-Beta Skills in Perfect Global Balance

Under the combined brilliance of Blazy and Chanel CEO Leena Nair — an extraordinary balance of alpha-beta frequencies is simmering over at Chanel. Hours before Chanel’s early March F/W 2026 show in Paris, the duo decided to make Bhavitha Mandava a Chanel ambassador, straight-up. You do not risk losing a woman with the poise, elegance and personality of this real-life treasure.

I’m sure that Chanel was reading the same Red Note summaries out of China that I was. Young women, their own mothers, their grandmothers and aunties — Chinese women were ‘mad’ for Mandava and her New York subway discovery story.

With so much stress and misery going on over America’s geo-political situation, my own eyes became misty reading the Red Note translations as they flooded into my chat window.

Coming out of China, these women were rooting for this gorgeous, educated in science and engineering but middle-class model out of India. That was inspiring enough.

But they were also rooting for New York City and the subway system that carries so many other peoples hopes and dreams of America every day. Their Chinese friends and relatives were posting messages from New York City in support of Mandava.

Like they were posing in what they believed to be her favorite coffee shop, where she went to school at New York University, and yes — the defunct subway station. All these little stories added up to an extraordinary Chanel journal about dreams that still do come true.

This is the story of Coco Chanel herself. Born into deep poverty and with absolute pain moving in and out of her adult life for decades, Coco’s story is Bhavitha’s story.

I was so deeply touched in this moment where it’s absolutely understandable that the world’s people are full-up and fed-up with the Americans — that primarily women in China were separating a classic New York story about a young woman from India being discovered on the subway and now here she is in all her glory — from the actions of my government.

In this difficult political moment when many of us are terribly afraid of losing the best story of America — the one I believe in — emotional reinforcements for Anne came not from Europe, but from women of all ages in these two nations of China and India cheering on Blavitha Mandavi. It was a high-impact moment.

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The Story of Coco Chanel and ‘Boy’ Capel: A Union Blessed At Last by Their Shirtmaker Charvet

Related: on the topic of Coco Chanel’s life, I urge you to read our story in New Humanism: Chanel Praises Matthieu Blazy, Anne's Mycelium Man, for Combusting the Charvet Marriage

There’s major romance in this Chanel buys Charvet business story, spring-boarded by the intense love affair between Coco Chanel and Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel. As a stand-alone human relationship story between the couple, the facts are cinematic.

A Story of the World’s Finest Shirts

AOC never knew about Coco Chanel’s relationship with Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel, until two years ago. I was so touched by their extraordinary bond that ended in a tragic car crash on December 22,1919 in the south of France, that AOC’s and my own psychological and emotional relationship with Chanel changed overnight.

Empath Creator Matthieu Blazy Was Also Moved

Matthieu Blazy made a similar discovery in 2025, when he moved to his new position at Chanel. Like me, Blazy was deeply moved by the Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel story. Armed with the knowledge that Coco Chanel bought shirts for her lover Boy Capel at Charvet — and probably borrowed them regularly — Blazy decided to introduce himself to the famous shirtmaker, then owned by siblings Anne-Marie and Jean-Claude Colban.