There may be the constant fear of criticism, which has restricted filmmakers from trying to set fashion trends.
According to veteran designer Ritu Kumar, people were earlier not so exposed to fashion. So every new and unique garment seen at the big screen set a trend. That is now not the case.
“Initially, costumes, that have been off everyday wear for the standard population, did cause a stir and ended in fashion influences because the market was starved of such designer wear. But this has largely changed,” Kumar, who's yet to design for a Bollywood film, told IANS.
Kumar, who has designed the costumes for Deepa Mehta’s “Midnight’s Children”, hopes the scenario improves.
“The industry still seems to design for people. When more holistic designing for a whole film is taken up, the craze scene in India will mature further.”
In the past, Bollywood has given memorable styles to masses. Remember the 1960 period drama “Mughal-e-Azam” when Madhubala as Anarkali sported long flowing kurtas and churidars. Almost five decades later, the eponymous Anarkali kameez is the present rage with everybody, from homemakers to hip Bollywood actresses, wearing it.
In 1994, Madhuri Dixit left a mark together with her green embroidered choli paired with a white lehnga and a purple embroidered sari in “Hum Aapke Hain Koun…!”. Women lapped up the styles at family weddings. There are such a lot of similar instances. There have been Rani Mukerji’s “Bunty Aur Babli” suits after which the sari, of course, redefined again and again with movies like “Chandni”, “Main Hoon Naa” and “Dostana”.
But new trends at the moment are few and much between.
“The main reason behind that is that a lot of stylists of celebrities or films are playing safe with ongoing trends in fashion. They're primarily using outfits which can be in fashion, avoiding the chance of style faux pas. Thus they're unable to create a brand new trend,” designer Pria Kataaria Puri told IANS.
“Earlier, film costumes weren't designed in step with what everyone was wearing or consistent with international trends but were rather filmy or outlandish, rule breaking; and in the event that they worked well, it became a brand new trend. To create a style, one has to create costumes which might be unusual,” she added.
Costume designer Payal Saluja, who has worked on Vishal Bhardwaj’s “Maqbool”, “Ishqiya”, “Saat Khoon Maaf” and now “Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola”, says the move towards realistic filmmaking in Bollywood has changed the scene.
“Stories have gotten real and connectable for the audience nowadays. So, the garments also must be in tandem. Clothes should not be stronger than the nature because then the viewer will only remember the garments. So it's first important to consider blending costumes into the narrative instead of create fashion trends,” Saluja told IANS.
According to designer duo Meera and Muzaffar Ali, one of the crucial leading names on this planet of fashion, “costumes (today) are left to stars’ whims and their sycophant designers and colors that suit a cameraman”.
“Anything and everything in Bollywood can set a trend amidst mindless individuals who know no better. What concerns me is the manner of the film,” said Muzaffar Ali, director of the classic “Umrao Jaan”.
His wife Meera added: “There were some yesteryear stars who had a body language which made what they wore extremely attractive. They somehow caught the fondness of the audience by getting the color and mood right, particularly in romantic outdoors… Shammi Kapoor, Dharmendra and every now and then Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, however the remainder of the film had no look whatsoever. Similarly, women had a narrative on their face they usually knew the way to tell it more effectively through their performance.” – IANS
