All that Jazz

Niharika Bhasin Khan with a peacock feather gown she made for Bombay Velvet.

Even as she turns the coffee-stained pages of her Bombay Velvet mood board portfolio, costume designer Niharika Bhasin Khan points to photographs she has culled from family albums of her parents, and her mother-in-law and yesteryear actor Begum Para for Anurag Kashyap’s period film. Sepia-toned pages, neatly earmarked according to the era (spanning late ’40s to ’60s), community (Parsis, Maharashtrians, Goans) and protagonists, point to research that was extraordinary in depth and detail. But then, Kashyap’s opus, slated to release on May 15, has been anything but a regular project for Khan and her team of 14.

For someone who has excelled as the “everyman” costume designer, with films such as Rocket Singh-Salesman of the Year, The Lunchbox, Kai Po Che! and Margarita With a Straw, Khan admits she was surprised when Kashyap offered her the film. “My first reaction was: ‘You want my brother (Life of Pi costume designer Arjun Bhasin), not me’. When you are an ‘everyman’ designer, you don’t get such glamourous movies. I was supremely excited and I said yes to it without thinking about the sheer scale of the film,” says Khan.

What followed was a project that took over her life for a year-and-a-half, was shot across sets in India and Sri Lanka and posed innumerable challenges. The film traces the journey of Rosie Noronha (Anushka Sharma) and Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor), and Khan had to not only recreate that era, but also trace the characters’ growth graph through their outfits. From jazz clubs, salons and newspaper offices to brothels, mills and opium dens, the designer assiduously gave each character and milieu a different montage. From Rosie’s stage outfits and Johnny’s street-fighter avatar, with his James Cagney-inspired tousled mane and boxy suits, to Karan Johar’s dapper Kaizad Khambatta and Raveena Tandon’s flamboyant Dahlia, with her outre gowns and hair accessories, Khan’s team trawled through Chor Bazaar, Chandni Chowk and flea markets of London to lend an authentic touch to the characters.

Anushka Sharma with Ranbir Kapoor in a still from the film.

While the London trip yielded vintage brooches, tie-pins and hats, the clothes themselves had to be made. “I stationed an assistant in Varun Bahl’s office in Delhi because I wanted him to make the suits for Karan and Ranbir,” recalls Khan. She also called upon Babita Malkani, Swapnil Shinde, Urvashi Joneja, Shivan & Narresh, Shantanu & Nikhil, Gauri and Nainika and Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna to pitch in with the ensembles. Along with a costume haul of around 10,000 outfits, nearly 300 hats, 35 pieces of headgear and 75 vintage rabbit shoes were sourced or created.

One of Khan’s fondest memories is of an epiphany she had in the town square in Sattal, near Nainital, during a trekking trip. “There were vendors selling peacock feather fans and we went around the square and bought all the fans. I came back to Mumbai and told my assistants, ‘We’re going to make a gown for Raveena with these feathers’. They thought I was crazy,” she says. The gown with a peacock feather train was made for Tandon, while Sharma’s wardrobe boasted other elaborate sequinned, embroidered and feathered numbers, including one that weighed 35 kg.

Karan Johar in a still from the film.

When dressing nearly 300 cast members on an average shoot day did not seem a child’s play, Kashyap’s words kept Khan going. “He told me, ‘I only have four heroes in this film —my director of photography, production designer, costume designer and music composer.’ When people trust you to do your best, you can’t let them down,” she says.

BOMBAY VELVET
IN NUMBERS:

300: Vintage buttons sourced for the costumes

300: Vintage sunglasses sourced

100: Suits (including duplicates) stitched for Ranbir Kapoor’s character

80: Dresses and gowns designed for the character played by Anushka Sharma

Source:: Indian Express