This list of 10 Best Costumes from Bollywood clearly defines the quote of Mason Cooley which says –
“Clothes make a statement, Costumes tell a Story!”
1. PADMAVAT
Costume Designer – Rimple & Harpreet Narula
The Costumes designers reveal that initially, their design team started doing research by delving into various travelers’ accounts and manuscripts to get an insight of how the lifestyle of the Royals used to be back then.
“Given that we are dealing with 14th-century royals, and not much is actually documented of that era, we had to shift and isolate key elements that might have been prevalent then and eliminate all modern/ Mughal/ European influences from the garments to enter a pure-zone,” says Harpreet, adding that it took them almost a year and a half to create over 150 outfits for the film, all printed, embroidered and sourced from different regions in India.
2. MUGHAL-E-AZAM
Costume Designer – Makhanlal & Company
One of greatest contributors to the grand success of Mughal-E-Azam was the costumes design. They put lot of efforts to ensure that the costumes looks as grand and authentic as possible. Tailors from Delhi, skilled in the art of zardozi embroidery were brought down to Mumbai to stitch the various Mughal costumes. Specialists from Surat, Gujarat embroidered the costumes with intricate zari and zardozi designs.
3. BLACK
Costume Designer – Sabyasachi Mukherjee
The designer forayed into films by designing costumes for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s landmark film Black. It earned him critical acclaim along with the National Award in 2005 for the best costume designer for a feature film.
4. JODHA AKBAR
Costume Designer – Neeta Lulla
Neeta Lulla found Jodhaa Akbar to be “one of the most challenging films” she had done.
She quoted this after winning the 3rd National Award for this movie’s costumes –
“I worked on the project for a year and a half. Not only for the primary characters, i.e. of Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai’s, I also designed for an entire cast in the film. In terms of research, not much of information was available about the costumes during that period. All the clothes I designed myself.”
5. HAIDER
Costume Designer – Dolly Ahluwalia
Sharing her experience in the movie, she says, “Haider was a different kind of a challenge. This was a genre that I had never touched before and it made me nervous, in a sense. As per the (Shakespearean) theme on hand, the work on Kashmiri costumes became even more demanding. This project took me back to a bygone era; the Kashmir of the 1990s. A comprehensive study was essential to get a feel for the right kind of wardrobe for the cast.”
6. DEVDAS
Costume Designer – Neeta Lulla, Abu Jani, Sandeep Khosla, and Reza Sharifi
An entire era of the early 1900s with its very own vivid ambiance was to be depicted in Devdas. The costumes had to do full justice to the memorable characters and reflect their bearings and status. Each costume speaks of the painstaking research, flawless workmanship, and admirable physical, mental and emotional labor that went into its creation, which promises to be a visual delight for today’s film-goers and prized possessions for posterity.
7. FASHION
Costume Designer – Narendra Kumar Ahmed and Rita Dhody
Dhody said it took nearly two months for UTV and Bhandarkar to persuade her to help design the film; she found the job challenging because she had to make everything as authentic as possible. Interestingly, Priyanka Chopra had to wear 137 costumes in the film because her character passed through five phases.
8. UMRAO JAAN (1981)
Costume Designer – Subhashini Ali
As mentioned by Farooq Shaikh in an interview –
“Subhasiniji had the benefit that the Director Muzaffar Ali (her then Husband) was an artist himself, and had a tremendous sense of color. The visual beauty of the film is thanks to Muzaffar’s conceptualization and what cameraman Pravin Bhatt could capture on his lens. It’s a visual treat.
9. BAJIRAO MASTANI
Costume Designer – Anju Modi, Maxima Basu, Chandrkant Sonawane and Salvi Chandrshekhar
Anju Modi revealed that –
“Bajirao Mastani is largely a period film—and the reference for me was the context of that time in history when Bajirao emerged as a noted Peshwa; every aspect of that era played a key role in the design process for this movie, for me”.
They traveled to various parts of Maharashtra to research the costumes and how we could best highlight and detail out the nuances of each of the three protagonists’ characters and personalities.
10. KRRISH 3
Costume Designer – Dipika Lal, Anirudh Singh and Gavin Miguel
Miguel mentioned that he became a part of the project pretty late and started working on Kangna Ranaut’s look as soon as he came on board. “I was told that Kaya is a mutant with a svelte side to her personality. So I made a few sketches and he immediately gave it a nod,” stated Miguel. He also added “We decided to venture into more interesting colors like electric gray, silver, and black with metallic shades.
“A costume is a huge part of getting into character. Your body soaks in what you’re wearing, and you turn into someone else.”
– Jane Levy