In March, the Metropolitan Museum of Art received a special delivery: 57 rolls of pristine white carpet, each stretching nearly 100 feet long. Stored securely until around 3 a.m. on the first Monday in May, the precious fabric will be unfurled down the museum’s iconic Fifth Avenue steps and meticulously hand-painted by a team of artists, transforming it into the stage for hundreds of VIPs who will strut, sashay, and smize their way into the Met Gala later that evening.
The man behind those 73,625 square feet of magic carpet is 35-year-old Sivan Santhosh, co-owner of Neytt by Extraweave, based in Kerala, India. He started the company with his wife, Nimisha Srinivas, in 2021 continuing a family legacy of carpet weaving that stretches back more than a century. Neytt has manufactured the Met Gala’s red carpet for the 2022, 2023 and 2025 ceremonies — as well as this year’s event, taking place Monday.
