Cut from the right cloth

After the bling overdose of the past few years, designers are looking to inject a dose of reality into Bollywood costumes.

It has been a week since Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, Yash Raj Films' fourth film installment for the year 2007, was released. The critics' response has been mostly negative "" apart from other issues, some scathing remarks have been made about the film's portrayal of "stylised" poverty, especially as some characters flaunt fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee's clothes.

Mukherjee himself has an immediate answer to this: "I worked on a shoestring budget and made sure that costumes merged with the characters," he says. A National Award winner for his work in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black, he explains that he spent not more than Rs 400 on each character for the outfits in Laaga Chunri Mein Daag.

"Rani Mukherji and Konkona SenSharma's characters wear cotton-printed kurtas and have only four-five outfits in their wardrobes. Rani, despite being the main lead, has repeated and even mixed-and-matched these outfits on her own," he says.

And if Mukherjee didn't shy away from giving his actors tacky garments, bags and cheap coin purses in Laaga..., it was because he wanted to strictly adhere to the script. "Cinema, after all," he says, "is somewhere a reflection of reality."

Thankfully, he isn't the only one thinking like this. Along with him, a fair number of dress designers are snipping away with their scissors, dumping all that bling and knotting all loose ends in order to give contemporary Indian cinema a chic yet realistic cut.

"Audiences can smell fakery," affirms Pooja Ladha Surti, associate director and editor of Johnny Gaddaar. "We didn't want to make a hero out of Neil (the film's lead actor). According to the script his character is that of a regular guy," she adds. So even if Johnny Gaddaar was his debut film, Neil Nitin Mukesh had no designer wear or fancy threads going for him. "Only jeans and simple shirts for our hero," laughs Surti.

Unlike the 1980s, which according to many directors and dress designers, was a "rubbish" period for costumes in Indian cinema, the 1990s and early 2000, say experts, were better but unrealistic at the same time.

"In the last 10 years, fashion designers, and directors like Karan Johar went abroad, purchased branded wear and gave them to their actors, saying, 'Wear it and let the brand scream'," says Vivek Agnihotri, whose film Goal will hit the cinema screens on November 23, 2007.

"I went to London's Southall area, saw how people on the streets dressed there and promptly picked up stuff from there," he says, adding, "I didn't even let my actors iron their clothes." But why?

"Because no bachelor, according to me, would pay any attention to ironing shirts," he says. What's more, he hasn't shyed away from giving his actors fake branded wear. "What I saw in Southall is what I intend to project on the screen," he explains.

It is this realistic projection of costumes in films that is prompting designers to lend their expertise to films. Take Anuradha Vakil, for instance, who has designed for Sonam Kapoor in Saawariya.

"Sonam is Sakeena and what she wears cannot bear the stamp of Anuradha Vakil," says the designer, who has stepped into the world of Indian cinema costumes for the very first time. "On the ramp, I am the queen. But in films, my clothes can't dominate, they can only contribute to enhancing the frame," says Vakil.

Reza Shariffi, one of the veteran costume designers in India, with over 150 films to his credit (including Bhansali's Dev-das, for which he got a National Award), says, "I like making realistic clothes, and thankfully today's Indian cinema is beginning to project it." He's worked on Saawariya too and says that Bhansali, as a director, knows exactly what he wants on screen.

"He had the visuals in mind, he knew how everything needed to look on screen," says Shariffi. What was his biggest challenge while designing for this film? "The film is not based on any era but the clothes have a slightly bygone and a contemporary look at the same time. The biggest challenge was to work on the look of different characters but in hues of blues, blacks and greys."

Niharika Khan, another designer who makes her debut with Khoya Khoya Chand, feels that the biggest reason why she stepped into the costume design department for this film was because director Sudhir Mishra agreed to give her complete freedom for costumes in the film. Since it is a film set in the 1950s, Khan met a lot of people including actors like Waheeda Rahman, Dilip Kumar and Sharmila Tagore.

"Soha Ali Khan has even worn some of her mum's [Sharmila's] sarees," she says, adding, "I raided my grandmother's wardrobe too and brought out some exquisite sarees." French nets, flowing chiffons and light silks have been Khan's choice for the film while Western jewellery completes the accessories part for Soha in the film. "Costumes in Indian films still have a long way to go," she says, adding that she's now working on Ketan Mehta's next project.

Many credit not just directors but even actors who are willing to experiment with their onscreen look. "For one of the sequences in Laaga... Rani told me not to give her a sleeveless number. Her understanding was that no girl in the flesh trade, from a conservative background, would even bare her arms while coming in front of someone whom she thought was truly in love with her. I appreciated her observation," says Mukherjee.

Being realistic seems to be the only brief that filmmakers are giving to their costume designers. "Even if football player Ronaldo watches this film, he shouldn't be able to point his finger at my film. That's the precision I wanted in each frame," adds Agnihotri.

Hundreds of Reebok shoes were especially imported from New York, Germany and France for this football-centric film. Agnihotri even tied up with Niki Carter, who with 15 years of experience in designing costumes for Nike ads, worked on all the football outfits for 12 teams showcased in the film.

For now, cinematic costume designs, most of them realistically cut, are giving Indian movies the attention that they've always deserved.