Heady Style

All that changes with Cocktail,a new film by maverick filmmaker Homi Adajania,top-lining Padukone,Saif Ali Khan and another model-turned-actress,Diana Penty. The film is an old chestnut called a love triangle,but it is the director’s treatment of Padukone’s character that saves it from being cliché. It is every bit the pretty-pretty Bolly candy,shot in glamorous foreign locales,good music,zippy editing and quicksilver writing. But who can get their eyes off Deepika Padukone? Not one from the roaring single-screen that I watched the film in,not in the raucous stalls or the swishy dress circles who paid the price of a multiplex ticket here in black.

Padukone plays an independent woman who loves fashion and makes it her own; she doesn’t follow it on-trend as many big-budget heroines do,dolled in designer labels top to toe. The film’s talented stylist,Anaita Shroff Adajania,says even though Padukone plays a wealthy girl (she calls herself “rich bitch” in the film),she’s given her a wardrobe of high street mixed with luxury.

Her glimmering nightclub dresses remind you of Balenciaga’s height of chic from last year,Shroff Adajania says they’re from French Connection. There’s a stunning maxi tie-dye from Topshop,and there are smatterings of H&M,River Island,the very British All Saints,accessoried with Burberry,Chanel and Anya Hindmarch. There are crazy doodad from Mawi,and wild cuffs from Amrapali.

Her hair is big and streaked blond,her eyes smoky and smouldering. She’s all leg in most scenes,and she drinks and smokes and sometimes,snorts.

Padukone is the girl on the verge of a nervous breakdown,like so many of us were when we were young. She’s lost,and found and lost again. She plays many different people in one film — she’s the cool chick,the party vixen,the heartbroken little girl,the amazing bestie,the urbanista with a desi heart,the spoilt brat — all at once. The nuances don’t go unnoticed,even in a film as loud and pop as this one.

On her big night of soul-fixing partying,she wears a smouldering backless gown by Rabani and Rakha,with a vintage faux fur jacket. In possibly the best and most natural bikini scene in the history of Indian movies,she throws off her shirt and jumps off a boat into the blue — just like that. Of course she has “a bloody amazing body”,as Shroff Adajania says,but her character is as reckless as that.

Film awards rarely favour a role that isn’t author-backed,and if the styling is so subtle,it can go with much attention too. But Cocktail is a film that both Padukone and her stylist should raise their glasses to.

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