“I am a costume designer, not a fashion designer looking to create trends. I work according to the characters,” says Niharika Khan Bhasin, the lady who dressed up Anushka Sharma, Ranbir Kapoor and the rest of the cast of Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet , releasing on May 15.
As a practice, Niharika likes to design and style the looks of the entire cast as opposed to just the pivotal characters. “It’s like painting a picture where you know each character has to be turned out in a certain way. If the main actors are given a certain look to represent an era, strata of society or a community, the others in the frame should also be dressed appropriately. I cannot have someone dressed in denims in a period drama,” she says. But this quest to design the look for a full film also comes with having to iron out budget constraints. “In many cases, people are willing to spend on dressing up the lead actors because the focus is on them but not on others who are in the frame,” she says.
One of her first films was Sudhir Misra’s Khoya Khoya Chand , also a period drama, but Niharika insists Bombay Velvet has been her most cumbersome and challenging film so far. She, along with a team, went through six to eight months of pre-production. “We had to give the actors looks that represent Bombay of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and there had to be subtle difference between each decade,” she says.
Niharika and her team turned to the internet for help, pored over old magazines and took cues from personal photo albums of people in Bombay. The looks were designed according to communities (Mahastrians, Parsis and Anglo Indians from Goa who moved to Bombay) and locations (race course, jazz club, cricket club, press offices, mills and so on).
Niharika had worked with Anushka Sharma earlier in Band Baaja Baaraat , but Bombay Velvet was a different ball game. “When I did Band Baaja , I wondered if I could pull it off because I don’t wear Indian clothes and that was the first time I was designing ethnic outfits. Here, Anushka is a singer from Goa who moves to Bombay and makes a name for herself. The jazz clubs in that era were formal. Over the decades, we’ve become casual in our way of dressing and the way we approach retro also has a casual ring to it. Anushka’s look had to represent the formal nature of that era in clothes, hair and makeup. Anushka had an excellent hair and makeup team,” says Niharika.
Buzz has it that Niharika put together 140 gowns for Anushka but the designer says the count is higher. “I think we made more, a few that didn’t go Anushka’s look was used for other supporting actors. We also took the help of designers Swapnil Shinde, Nikhil Thampi, Urvashi Joneja and Babita Malkani for the gowns. Varun Bahl, being a friend of Karan Johar, designed a few outfits for Karan and Ranbir.”
An emerald green gown with a train of about 5 feet, with sequinned work and golden flames quilted and appliquéd, weighed 33kgs. “The dress turned out to be heavy because of the work that went into it,” reasons Niharika.
As for Ranbir, she had to make him appear like a North Indian boy who arrives in Bombay with little or almost no money and wants to become big. “He is the kind of guy who would emulate people he looks up to, because he doesn’t know any better. He wears perfectly tailored suits, brooches and stylish sunglasses like the nouveau riche.”
While Niharika looks back at Bombay Velvet with pride, she feels designing a contemporary, urban film is a lot tougher because “I am constantly thinking what will be in vogue when the film releases.” Case in point, Rock on!
Niharika’s portfolio has a varied set of films, from Delhi Belly to Margarita with a Straw , The Dirty Picture to Kai Po Che and Rang Rasiya to Shah Rukh Khan’s next, Fan . There’s also Abhishek Kapoor’s Fitoor , in which she will be designing for everyone except Ranbir and Katrina.
