Few costume designers can claim to have styled Amitabh Bachchan and Kiefer Sutherland, Kate Hudson and Katrina Kaif, or worked with Oscar-nominated film-makers and cutting-edge Indian directors. Arjun Bhasin has zigzagged the globe costuming characters in films as diverse as Monsoon Wedding, Dil Chahta Hai, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Life of Pi. Hours before he left for a screening of The Reluctant Fundamentalist in London, Bhasin told us what he learnt from Ang Lee and why Nair is particular about the colour palettes of costumes. Edited excerpts:
How different were the briefs from Ang Lee and Mira Nair for their respective films?
If you read Life of Pi, it’s hard to visualize it because it is more emotional and cerebral. So when it came to costumes, Ang too wasn’t certain what it should look like but he was sure of what it should feel like and what it should mean. Like when it came to Tabu, he would repeatedly say she’s the mother, she’s the mother. I didn’t really understand at first but then I figured that he wanted her to be really tactile, nourishing, warm, soft, nurturing. He wanted to see that in shapes and colours and the way fabric moved. Mira was adamant that the costume and every detailing should look like Pakistan, even though we were shooting in Delhi. Author Mohsin Hamid’s niece worked in my department, keeping a check on the authenticity. Mira is also very colour-sensitive, so every city and scene has its own colour palette.
How challenging was it to recreate 1950s Paris, 1960s Puducherry and post-colonial costumes for ‘Life of Pi’?
It was not just this, it was also the costumes for Pi on the boat and grown-up Pi in modern Canada. It required tonnes of research. For the swimming baths of Paris, we used photo and film research and I had Shivan and Naresh replicate vintage swimwear using furnishing fabrics because I want it to give a dream-like feel. It drove Shivan and Naresh mad because they are used to working with lycra, but there was no lycra in the 1950s, so all the swim-wear had to be constructed. So the garment had a swimsuit shape but it was zipped and buttoned and the colour palette was the Versailles interiors—robin blues, mint, peach and gold.
The hardest working costume was Pi’s costume on the boat. It had to be soothing, period, practical and conducive to a harness and equipment. And he uses it to catch fish, shield himself, etc. Also, it had to deteriorate as the year on the boat passed. We had 200 pieces of that one costume made of matka silk and white khadi. And there were stages and 10-12 garments for each stage. We also tested the effects of sea salt on the fabric and worked with that.
The Pondicherry part was quite a confluence and khichdi (mishmash) of stuff and then there was the Munnar referencing, which I did from boarding-school friends who grew up on tea estates.
What was the biggest challenge with ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’?
Besides Mira’s absolute requirement for authenticity, there was also the challenge of costuming Kate Hudson, who had a baby four weeks before we were beginning shooting. We had to find ways of disguising that. She is petite, but she was self-conscious. Also, we were shooting in Atlanta for New York City and Delhi for Lahore, so we could not easily access the things we might have needed. Every city had its own colour palette. For example, we used many Amrita Sher-Gil images as references for Lahore colours. In New York City, people wear black and dark blue. In Lahore, they wear pink, blue and green.
‘Life of Pi’ is shot in 3D. Did that affect your approach to costuming?
Oh yes. It was like learning a new language. We took all the garments and ran them through studio tests so we could see what the 3D cameras would do to them. Some prints would jump, colours would get saturated.
What would you say you learnt from Ang Lee and Mira Nair?
From Ang, I learnt that design is instinctual. You have to feel it and you have to know how you want it to make others feel. The minutest details make it special. One day I dressed 200 people but he only shot four saying that was all he needed to get the thing that is the meaning. Mira is the opposite. She loves flamboyance, colour, beauty, madness, spirit and energy. It was like the rock star and the zen master.
Is the experience of working with Hollywood stars different from working with Bollywood stars?
Audiences are accustomed to an actor’s image and most actors want to play against that image. In India, it’s more so. Here audiences go to a movie to see Salman Khan as Salman Khan and you have to keep the audience in mind more, whereas abroad the audience is more open to suggestions, which is why actors are more experimental.
After these movies, any projects brewing in India?
Nothing at the moment, but that’s because I have not been here since Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. My sister says I am a huge snob, but I am not. I just don’t want to spend six months working on a movie that I am not going to spend 3 hours watching.
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