Sonam Kapoor: the Bollywood megastar on couture, King Charles and motherhood

“Who’s that?” lips smacked this fashion month as the paparazzi flashed and fans flocked to Sonam Kapoor taking her seat on the front row. Very quickly they learnt she is one of Bollywood’s biggest stars; the impeccably dressed actor who counts 35.3 million Instagram followers and calls Notting Hill home. 

She also owns a mansion in Delhi, a Mumbai pad where she hosted a welcome party for David Beckham when he travelled to India in November (“we were very happy to host him,” she says), and has an enviable UK network which also counts the royal family — she was asked to perform a piece of spoken word for the King’s Coronation concert last May. In India, Kapoor, 38, is best known for her leading film roles in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and Neerja, and has been married to Anand Ahuja, one of India’s greatest apparel manufacturers (net worth: a cool $650 million), since 2018. In Europe and the US, though, she is recognised as an haute couture client; one of a hyper-privileged clique of very wealthy women who can fathom dropping upward of $100,000 on a dress. 

There is a difference between herself and the stars she sits with at fashion shows — be that Central Cee at Tommy Hilfiger in New York, or Natalie Portman at Dior Couture in Paris. As well as being seen, Kapoor is there to go shopping. “There is no such thing as being overdressed,” she tells me. “I always end up buying something from any show that I go to. I feel I need to pick up something that I want to be a part of my wardrobe. I think of it as collecting art — and I like nice clothes.” 

She has a habit of letting slip fabulous (if wildly unrelatable) lines: “I’m a Gemini, how I dress all depends on my mood — sometimes I just wear a T-shirt, big balloon skirt and lots of jewels on the red carpet, other days I’ll wear a beautiful Giambattista Valli gown.” But for all camp froth, she takes fashion seriously. “I look at designers as artists defining the way people look over time. If you look at the Sixties or the Seventies, you’re looking at Geoffrey Beene, YSL and Cristóbal Balenciaga,” she says. “They are historians in the way they’re defining the way people look.” 

And who is doing that for 2024? “Phoebe Philo,” she says, of the cult designer whose eponymous brand launch in October — following a hiatus after her 2008 to 2017 stint at the top of Celine — was the most hyped in recent history. “I bought her whole collection.” She is hardly being hyperbolic. While fashion insiders were busy re-sharing memes mocking Philo’s extortionate prices (shearling coats cost £12,000, XL bags £6,500 and heels £1,100), Kapoor was one of those cheerily clicking ‘add to bag’. Two-thirds of the first drop sold out in 24 hours. Her shopping list (for anyone intrigued) read: “The olive coat; the olive set suit set; the grey suit set; one handbag; some shoes; sunglasses; the scarf top; a black blazer; trousers; another grey set — I bought a lot,” she says. “I mean, I’m obsessed with Phoebe.” As for her review: “I didn’t return anything from her collection, I didn’t need to. It just fit me like a glove.” 

Kapoor was always going to be stylish. She was born in Chembur, Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in 1985 to Anil Kapoor, the Bollywood actor and producer, and Sunita, a model and fashion designer-turned-jewellery designer. “She was wearing Japanese designers 40 years ago; Issey Miyake and Comme des Garçons — I knew all the designers because of her,” she says. She went on to board at the United World College, a British school in Singapore, before taking on breakthrough acting roles in I Hate Luv Storys, Aisha and Raanjhanaa.

Jean Paul Gaultier was the first major designer to dress her for a red carpet — “it was the Cannes Film Festival [in 2011]. He was really kind and leant me an archive dress” — and since, she has built up a Rolodex of designer collaborators which chart the most influential figures of 21st century fashion. 

Dior was the first house she developed a long-standing partnership with. “They have dressed me most since I was about 20,” she says. “I’ve seen all the different designers — whether it was [John] Galliano, Raf [Simons] and now Maria Grazia Chiuri.” She has formed a close bond with the latter, and as such led arrivals (in dusty pink Dior silk, no less) when Chiuri showed Dior’s Pre-Fall 2023 collection in Mumbai, under the Gateway of India, to shine a light on the county’s rich history of sartorial craftsmanship. 

“For years, my best friend has done embroidery for all the top European houses, and her family has been doing it for 45 years minimum. I know that whether it was Escada, Valentino, Dior, Chanel — most of the embroidery happens in India,” she says. “Maria Grazia was the one who acknowledged it and celebrated it. That’s special, because you need to know. There should be transparency where things are being made.” 

Sarah Burton, creative director of Alexander McQueen from 2010 to 2023, “would just make the most beautiful silhouettes,” she purrs, and “anything Galliano made would just fit right on me”. She loves The Row, gets her suits from Victoria Beckham and Saint Laurent, while Tommy Hilfiger “is like family — if he asks me to do something, I do it.” 

But it was Emilia Wickstead, the New Zealand-born, London-based designer and Princess of Wales favourite that Kapoor asked to make the dress she wore to present the Choir of the Commonwealth during the Coronation concert. “It was such a big audience so I was a little nervous — it was the whole world watching — but I felt like I was in my element,” she says. Wickstead made her an off-shoulder, chintz printed dress with Kapoor’s friend and Indian designer Anamika Khanna. It was a political statement. “I purposely wore chintz, because it is [a textile] from India which Europeans and the English have claimed. I wanted to tell people that a lot of the things that have been exported into the West, and the West have claimed, are actually very Indian,” she says. 

As for the King, she is supportive: “I was really happy because a lot of the things that the present King is passionate about, like the environment, are things I am as well.” At the dinner party that followed, she attests to the royal family being “very kind and very sweet”. 

Kapoor’s life currently revolves around her nearly two-year-old son (“he’s at the age he is running everywhere now”). She has taken the time off work to raise him — “I’m very lucky, I have a lot of help, but I like to be very involved” — and now is primed for her return to the screen. Projects include a film called Battle for Bittora — “which I’m going to start filming very soon” —  while the announcement of two further big budget films are to come. 

She makes time for fitness with a routine that includes “pilates three times a week. Weight training three times a week. I do yoga as often as I can and I try not to eat sugar and fried stuff — but every 10 to 15 days I break and I have some sort of sugar”, and is doing her best to perfect the work / family life balance. “I’m still learning. I’m not perfect and I’m trying my best,” she says. 

Kapoor does have one mandate: not to share her son with her followers. “I’m not going to put him on social media — he didn’t choose this. When he is old enough to make his choice he can do it for himself, but while he is so small I don’t want to expose him at all.” I wonder if her follower count ever burdens her, but she shrugs it off. “I just try to use it responsibly, and at the same time try to showcase who I am and speak about things that I believe in — sometimes I even have fun with it,” she says. “But that’s when I have the time. Right now, my son is my priority — I don’t post that much.” 

One event people will be wanting a look into is the Ambani wedding, between the son of Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest person, and Radhika Merchant. The pre-wedding this month — which saw a guestlist counting the best of Bollywood as well as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and a performance from Rihanna — had a chokehold on Instagram and TikTok in itself. 

“It was amazing, Indian weddings are the best,” she says. “And Rihanna is always fabulous.” She doesn’t know when the main event will be “because those dates haven’t come yet”, but one thing’s certain — “I will be going”. When it comes, everybody will be watching. As for dressing for an occasion like that… well, you might just consider dropping $100,000 on the dress.