Inside the Red Carpet: How Bangladeshi Designers Are Dressing the Stars

The red carpet at this year’s Meril–Prothom Alo Awards, held on 24 April at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Convention Centre in Dhaka, did what it always does best: turn the country’s biggest entertainment ceremony into its biggest fashion showcase as well. Organised annually since 1999 by Prothom Alo and sponsored by cosmetics brand Meril, the awards recognise achievement across film, television, music, and web series — but for viewers at home, the arrivals often generate as much conversation as the winners themselves.

This year’s reception, which began at 6pm, welcomed a guest list spanning generations of Bangladeshi entertainment: veteran performers Dilara Zaman, Alamgir, Runa Laila, and Afzal Hossain arrived alongside Zahid Hasan, Afsana Mimi, and Jaya Ahsan, with younger stars including Pori Moni, Zakia Bari Mamo, and Sadia Ayman rounding out the carpet. Hosts Afran Nisho and Mehazabien Chowdhury anchored the evening’s programme.

The standout look of the night belonged to Chowdhury herself, in a hot pink saree designed by Safiya Sathi. The piece featured hand embroidery depicting herons and water lilies — imagery drawn directly from Bangladesh’s natural landscape — and took a team of ten artisans between ten and eighteen days to complete. It was the kind of detail that has increasingly defined red-carpet fashion at the ceremony: local designers using traditional techniques and motifs rather than leaning on generic Western silhouettes, giving the event a visual identity distinct from awards shows elsewhere in the region.

That pairing of heritage craft with formal occasionwear has become something of a signature for Bangladeshi entertainment fashion more broadly — sarees and gowns built by local ateliers, styled for cameras but rooted in techniques passed through generations of artisans. For designers, a single high-profile red-carpet moment like Chowdhury’s can do more for visibility than a full season of commercial work, which is part of why the Meril–Prothom Alo carpet has become as closely watched as the awards themselves.