And once I returned to India, I found some gold borders and designed my own version of that iconic six-yard staple.In the year 1950, nestled on a stretch of Hollywood Boulevard between a Thrifty Drug Store and a J.J. On my next trip to London, I rushed to Southall to buy a purple charmeuse satin sari. I was mesmerised by Madhuri Dixit Nene’s costumes, and even though I was a business journalist at the time, one of my first interviews was with Anna Singh, the designer behind the purple sari the actor wore in ‘Didi Tera Devar Deewana’. When I moved to India in my 20s, watching Hum Aapke Hain Koun.! (1994) at Mumbai’s Liberty cinema was on top of my to-do list. My family would gather together to watch a film every week, and it was an important bonding time for us. I grew up in London, so in many ways Bollywood was how we felt connected to India, and also how we learnt to speak Hindi. What role has Bollywood played in your own life? They still influence the way we dress today-whether you take a kurta or concept sari. Think of Sadhana or Sharmila Tagore’s fitted kurtas in Waqt (1965), or Helen, who sizzled in Jewel Thief (1967) in that red, sequinned leotard-style costume featuring animal print details on the bust, with black and white ostrich plumes attached to the back. The ’60s, but that is my favourite time fashion-wise too. From all the eras depicted in the book, what’s your personal favourite in terms of style?
Today, every film award ceremony has a prize dedicated to the costume designer too. From the time when dress men and wives of filmmakers or actors worked on a movie’s costumes, to the current scenario, where a dedicated costume designer and team are employed to create a look, things have come a long way.
The film industry now understands how fashion can leverage a movie. It was all films-they were the vehicle that made trends popular and gave fashion a medium to tell its story.
Plus, fashion itself is a such a new industry-fashion weeks are not even two decades old, and most fashion magazines in the country are no older than ten years old. For example, how can you forget the polka-dotted, cropped blouse Dimple Kapadia flaunted so effortlessly in Bobby (1973)? They create lasting memories. I think in India, the reel matters more than the ramp for the making of a trend. How has the fashion depicted in Bollywood films shaped the industry? Manish Malhotra’s insights were so sharp yet sensitive, that I decided that he should write the foreword of the book. I then reached out to experts in the industry, ranging from Vogue India’s Priya Tanna and Anaita Adajania and filmmaker Ramesh Sippy to film critics like Rajeev Masand and Udita Jhunjhunwala, as well as costume designer Neeta Lulla, to get their perspective on the relationship between film and fashion. Priya asked me if I would write the text, and that’s how it all started. She had discovered the work of a London-based illustrator Aparna Ram, who had done a lot of wonderful drawings from key moments in Indian cinema.
One day, I received a call from her out of the blue. I’d been wanting to work on a coffee table book that celebrated the evolution of Indian fashion, and I often expressed my interest in the same to her. The credit goes to Priya Kapoor (the editorial director of Delhi-based publication house, Roli Books). This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
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