Journalism of Courage
Bollywood is urban India’s trend book regardless of who is playing what,but the Bengali film industry’s wardrobe is still dependant on the characters. That’s why a stylist is a welcome oddity in Tollywood
With cotton kurtis,jeans and a jhola slung on her shoulders,Raima Sen in Sanjoy Nag’s forthcoming film Memories in March epitomises the urban Kolkata chic. She could be a student of Presidency College or a young copywriter in an advertisement firm in Salt Lake. Just the look Nag wanted for her – unfussed,yet attentive to style in a casual way. I wanted her to look like an everyday working woman from the city. She is conscious about the way she looks but not overtly so. Raima looks her part to the hilt, says Nag.
Costumes can make characters–as Bollywood has revealed over the last many decades. But if Hindi cinema now has costume directors dominating scripts with excessive focus on style,much of which panders to the retail market,the scene is different in Tollywood. The character is the hero here and costumes play only supporting cast. In the past,they were mere extras derived primarily from an accepted popular notion of Bengali dressing. Even now,Tollywood is not dictated by the market. Stylist Sabarni Das would agree. Thankfully,I was not asked to create a look keeping the retail market in mind. The kind of cinema made here gives us plenty of opportunities to delve deep in characters, says Das.
So while Kareena Kapoor styled by Aki Narula in Kambakht Ishq or Sonam Kapoor styled by Pernia Quereshi in Aisha looked headed for the luxury malls,the Swastikas and Raimas of Tollywood still look like the characters they play. When Rituparno Ghosh discusses the look of a film,he expects us to know the characters thoroughly. He want his heroines to look like the characters in his mind, says Das who has styled Raima and Riya Sen in Ghosh’s next film Noukadubi.
In last year’s ensemble film 033 (directed by Birsa Dasgupta),stylist Suchismita Dasgupta designed close to hundred looks for the six lead characters who play members of a Bangla band. Much of what the characters wore were their own clothes due to budgetary constraints. Swastika’s long skirts and glasses received a lot of feedback but they were not stylistic devises,she played a girl who wore glasses and skirts, says Dasgupta.
Das too has to fall back on her personal collection of sarees to recreate the 1970s look in Aparna Sen’s Iti Mrinalini. In Iti Mrinalini,Konkona Sen Sharma’s character is a Bengali film star of the 1970s. According to my research,stars from that era used to wear a lot of batik silk sarees and tussar sarees. I had to raid my mother’s wardrobe to get sarees which would look authentic enough, says Das,who was a journalist before she started her cinematic career with Aparna Sen’s Paromitar Ek Din.
The concept of stylists in Bengali cinema is still in a nascent stage. Since Tollywood style is not really market-targeted,our work is hardly ever acknowledged. People only know about the designer or the stylist when the audiences start copying styles, says Dasgupta. This is what happened with Aki Narula’s kurtis for Rani Mukherjee in the film Bunty aur Babli and Priyanka Chopra’s saris with sexy cholis in Dostana. Both became a rage. Tollywood designers on the otherhand must be inspired by the script,not the catwalk.
However,what plagues Tollywood stylists is budgetary constrains. And as everyone knows,fashion is about money.Recently,a leading Tollywood actress came to me and asked me to recreate Katrina Kaif’s look from one of her recent blockbusters. But her budget was only R 10,000. I was appalled and obviously refused the offer, says Amohaa Das who styles for leading glossies of Kolkata. The wardrobe budget of a typical Tollywood film varies from R 10,000 to R 30,000. “That’s is probably less than what Bollywood stylists spend for one costume of the heroine. There have been quite a few instances where we had to compromise on quality,” says Dasgupta.
