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Earlier this month, Anita Chhiba, founder of the Diet Paratha Instagram account and content agency, which champions South Asian creativity, voiced growing concerns about luxury’s “blanket” embrace of Diwali. “The brand noise in the West feels like it’s drowning out other voices in the community,” she wrote, sparking a debate in the comments.
In the past few years, Diwali has become an anchor for global luxury marketing. From Armani Beauty’s make-up masterclass in London or Jimmy Choo hosting a dinner to Golden Goose creating a special candle art experience in their Dubai flagship, brands of all sizes and shapes have added a Diwali event to their calendar.
Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, but it is not universally celebrated across India, let alone the whole of the South Asian region. For South Indians, for instance, Onam marks the harvest season and honours the mythical king Mahabali, while for Bengalis, Durga Puja — celebrating the Goddess Durga’s victory over evil — is the cultural highlight of the year.
Chhiba also highlights the importance of Eid, noting that even within India, there is a large Muslim community that celebrates its own major festivals. Diwali isn’t “a catch-all cultural marketing moment”, she says in her post.
The addition of Diwali into the luxury marketing calendar has made Indian high-net-worth consumers feel acknowledged, says Samyukta Nair, restaurateur and co-founder of LSL Capital, whose portfolio includes Bombay Bustle and Jamavar (with outposts in London and Dubai). “For many in the diaspora, seeing London light up creates a real sense of belonging,” she says. “But visibility should come with depth.”
A South Indian herself, Nair would like to see that recognition extended to other regional celebrations. “While Diwali is the gateway to Indian holidays, I’d love to see the same recognition for festivals like Onam or the Parsi New Year Navroz. At Jamavar Dubai, we recently celebrated Onam, and the joy it brought was amazing — people dressed up, came together, and shared stories over food. It felt like a tradition revived, but one that resonated far beyond home.”
That sentiment is echoed by Tahira Tara Chawla, a Gen Z key opinion leader who moved from New Delhi to London 11 years ago. When she first came to London, Diwali was a festival most in England had not heard of. Of Punjabi and Bengali heritage, she celebrates both Diwali and Durga Puja, and now works with Saatchi Yates, where she’s become known for her cultural fluency and fashion influence within the South Asian diaspora. In the run-up to Diwali, she attended around five events hosted by luxury brands, including the Jimmy Choo Dinner hosted at Jamavar by the brand’s creative director, Sandra Choi, and Gauravi Kumari, brand ambassador who hails from the Jaipur Royal family.
“Sometimes luxury’s approach to Diwali feels like shorthand,” she says. “India isn’t a monolith — I have Sikh friends who celebrate Bandi Chor Divas (which often coincides with Diwali — commemorates the day Guru Hargobind Ji was released from imprisonment, one of the important days in the year for Sikhs, who make up a large part of the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom). Others who mark Durga Puja, and those moments, rarely get mentioned.”
Some take a more pragmatic view, seeing the recognition of Diwali as a step in the right direction. “While there are many other cultural moments beyond Diwali that deserve to be celebrated, I welcome how luxury has embraced it,” says Jamie Gill, founder of The Outsiders Perspective, an accelerator platform for people of colour, and former CEO of Roksanda. “Diwali has become a global cultural moment — it represents the diaspora and resonates with wider society. “Even if the understanding is still surface-level, it’s a start. Encouragement, not critique, will help brands go deeper and discover the next stories to tell.”
From tokenism to authenticity
Indeed, another concern among observers is that some luxury brands are jumping on the Diwali bandwagon with campaigns, collaborations and events, without taking the time to really understand the meaning of it. A dinner with Indian KOLs feels formulaic, while a Diwali beauty masterclass focused on makeup looks borders on commercial rather than cultural. “What would it look like if, instead of crowding a 10-day period with the same events and the same guest lists, brand partners channelled that energy into meaningful, year-round projects?” asked Chhiba in her Instagram post.
“Few brands demonstrate genuine, long-term support beyond aesthetic or commercial borrowing,” says Chhiba. “For me, Dior under Maria Grazia Chiuri stands out — she consistently supported Indian artists and artisans, giving back to the country in meaningful, sustained ways. Her approach remains unmatched.”
Chawla highlights the Cartier x Condé Nast Traveller Diwali Ball as another example of an authentic partnership. “Cartier’s historic relationship with India, from royal patronage to craftsmanship, gives their involvement a sense of depth and authenticity. Partnering with Condé Nast Traveller, especially under [editor-in-chief] Divia Thani’s leadership, brings in a strong Indian perspective that feels real and rooted. It’s not just about aesthetics — it’s a genuine celebration of community and heritage.”
“This year has been a whirlwind — full of change, disruption, tough questions, and moments of uncertainty. There’s been darkness. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how we move through times like these,” Thani said at the event. “For me, it comes down to two things: embracing change and staying grounded in who we are. We grow when we stay open to new ideas, to collaboration, to each other. But our true strength also comes from knowing where we come from, from the values and traditions that anchor us.”
“I don’t think brands should shy away from religious festivals,” says Gill. “These are cultural moments that may have been born out of religion but are now part of mainstream, shared celebrations — Holi, for instance, could absolutely be included. The issue isn’t in celebrating these festivals; it’s in the tokenism and lack of authenticity. Too often, the people who actually celebrate these festivals year after year — within their own communities and families — aren’t involved in the decision-making.”
The Outsiders Perspective recently co-authored The UK Fashion DEI Report with the British Fashion Council, Fashion Minority Report, and McKinsey Company, which found that only 9 per cent of executives and board positions in the UK fashion industry are held by people of colour. When it comes to “power roles” — CEO, CFO, creative director — that number rises slightly to 11 per cent. “When there isn’t representation of the market in the room making decisions — or when a decision is made abstractly, through second-party research — that’s when it becomes tokenism,” adds Gill. “The decisions are being made without really understanding what we’re talking about.”
The South Asian diaspora is vast and influential. The UK alone is home to over two million people of Indian origin, its largest ethnic minority group — and the connection runs deep, from history and cuisine to art and design. But the conversation is increasingly global: Dubai, New York, Singapore, and Toronto are emerging as key centres of South Asian cultural expression, where “Indian” often sits within a wider, more inclusive South Asian narrative.
Perhaps, in time, we’ll also see other Indian festivals like Holi, the Hindu festival of colours, take their place alongside both Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha (luxury brands often forget there are two Eids in a calendar year). These celebrations could find a home in the global luxury landscape, provided they’re approached with the same sensitivity and respect. Chhiba also points to Diet Paratha’s recent collaboration with the Victoria Albert Museum during the Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence exhibition in March. The Friday Late event drew over 6,000 guests, underscoring how vibrant, modern and multi-dimensional the South Asian creative community is when given a platform beyond the festival season.
While the fact that global brands have woken up to Diwali shows that representation and connection now matter, the next step is to make that conversation richer — one that truly celebrates diversity and understands that there can never be a one-size-fits-all approach to any community.
Condé Nast Traveller and Vogue Business are both published by Condé Nast.
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