Since the release of Shamshera’s first teaser, Ranbir Kapoor’s rugged look has been a point of discussion. For those who are still unaware, costume designer duo Manoshi Nath and Rushi Sharma are the ones behind RK’s never-seen-before avatar. Ditto for Sanjay Dutt and Vaani Kapoor’s exotic looks. From Amitabh Bachchan to Babil Khan, Manoshi and Rushi have worked with a wide range of Bollywood stars. Since their first film Khosla Ka Ghosla, the designer duo have collaborated for about 40 films and 600 commercials. Post-Shamshera, they have eight projects lined up for release. Excerpts from a chat with Manoshi and Rushi, who have been designing costumes for 17 years.
Ranbir Kapoor’s Shamshera look is very striking. Tell us about your experience of working with Ranbir Kapoor.
Manoshi and Rushi: Ranbir Kapoor is a dream to work with and he looks good in any kind of clothes you give him. This one really is remarkable for us. Not just the look, he has never done this kind of a character. This absolute masculine, adrenaline-flowing kind of a cinematic appeal that the film has, portrays not one but two characters — the father and the son.
The biggest challenge was that he has an eternally young-looking face. So, it was an added challenge to make him look like the father and then the son. Not just the mood, the personalities of the two characters are also completely different. We had to keep that in mind that he is naturally a lean person and for us to make him look bulked up was half the battle won. He was on a special diet and a workout regime. The second half of the battle was different as we had to use fabrics that were heavy and textured. We also needed to ensure that the actor was comfortable, so along with the cuts, fittings, we used waffle and textured handloom fabrics, besides shawls and kamarbandh.
Ranbir is playing both the father (Shamshera) and the son (Balli) in Shamshera. Tell us about your challenge to put the two looks together.
Manoshi and Rushi: For Ranbir, we have used a lot of leather and metal. His footwear was also designed by us. The father is a revolutionary and a very serious man, while the son has a devil-may-care attitude. For the father, you will see the heavier, coarser fabrics, and the son in lighter fabrics. The colours are different. That’s how we have shown the emotional journey of every character in the film – with the use of fabrics.
The costume is instrumental to the film’s narrative. How did you research before you started work?
Manoshi and Rushi: We do character-driven, real-life cinema, where characters talk about their social background, and you have a reference point. But there was no such reference for us in Shamshera. The world that we have created is not the real world, though it has inspirations from reality. We have taken a lot of liberties and how we have held it true is by not using any synthetic fabrics because it wasn’t available then. Everything was crafted to stand true to the period, because it’s a fantasy and the elements that were needed to create it, needed to be real in the film. Different social strata are shown — there’s village life, life in big towns and the British empire. Then, there are many songs, performances, and all of them were created keeping in mind a lot of details.
How did you conceptualise Sona’s (Vaani Kapoor) glamorous look?
Manoshi and Rushi: Sona is actually a very interesting character because she has a solid emotional arc in the film. There is a transformation that we see in her. One of the inspirations for Sona was Mata Hari, a German spy during World War II who was executed. She was an exotic dancer who wore these metal dresses and blouses. Our inspiration to put actual metal on Sona comes from there. Even Sona’s makeup and hair were done keeping Mata Hari in mind.
From being an exotic dancer, Sona totally blends into Shamshera’s world. We used a lot of tulle, net, chiffon, a lot of sequins, metal, colours and sparkles on her in the beginning. Towards the middle, she went on to wear heavier, cotton, coarser fabrics. Her blouses were made with pieces and layers of metal. Vaani has done complicated choreography. The minute she wore those blouses, she looked spectacular. She had cuts and bruises with the metal chafing her skin, but she didn’t complain. The hard work put into those blouses turned out to be fantastic.
Ranbir Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt and Vaani Kapoor in Shamshera Yash Raj Films
Sanjay Dutt’s Shuddh Singh looks very intimidating. How did you make him look so scary?
Manoshi and Rushi: Shuddh Singh is an extremely menacing character and director Karan Malhotra’s brief was to make him look as menacing as possible. He is a police officer. To make him look intimidating in his uniform was a big deal. So, we tweaked his uniform by adding leather lapels, gold chains and buttons. We also gave him a golden tooth, which is significant to the film. His salt-and-pepper hair and the choti (ponytail) added to the look. When he walked on to the sets, everybody was scared, especially the girls, and that was the response we were looking at.
The shooting of Shamshera started before the pandemic hit us. Did you shoot during the pandemic?
Manoshi and Rushi: Most of the film was shot before the pandemic. We did shoot one song after that and there was patchwork too. Shamshera is heavy on action, involving a lot of VFX. There were spurts of reshoots that would happen, and we would have to dig tons of fabric and recreate the whole look. We had to follow the vision of the director and writer Ekta Pathak. The way the film was storyboarded to us, we felt that it was larger than life, and we experienced it. The number of people dressed by us was around 500, excluding the main leads. Everyone had to be dressed — hair, makeup and jewellery. That was quite a task.
Costume Designer Rushi Sharma and Manoshi Nath Yash Raj Films
Besides Ranbir, you have also worked with Ranveer Singh recently in Jayeshbhai Jordaar. Ranveer is known for his flamboyant fashion. Tell us more.
Manoshi and Rushi: Again, Ranveer has never looked like this before. He played the quieter man, the anti-hero, the underdog, and he did it so well. Every costume in Jayeshbhai Jordaar made his body look diminutive. We sourced many things from Ahmedabad. All the fabrics were from the weavers of Kutch. It’s a dark satire against a colourful background. The film opens in layers. Despite not having done great business after its theatrical release, it’s doing well on OTT (Amazon Prime). Aamir Khan had once told us that the greatest films are those that are remembered. He reminded us about the box office results of Andaz Apna Apna, so you know! (Smiles)
Since you mentioned Aamir Khan, who are the other biggies you have worked with?
Manoshi and Rushi: Besides Aamir, we have worked with Katrina Kaif, Amitabh Bachchan (Thugs of Hindostan), Deepika Padukone (Lafangey Parindey), Kangana Ranaut (Queen, Panga, Simran), Akshay Kumar (Bellbottom, Cinderella) and Vidya Balan (Sherni). In Raama Setu, we did the rest of the characters besides Akshay’s costumes.
Our next is Janhvi Kapoor’s Good Luck Jerry. We have also worked in the upcoming web series The Railway Men (R. Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon, Divyenndu and Babil Khan). There is also Maja Maa (Madhuri Dixit) and another unnamed one with the same director, starring Vicky Kaushal and Tripti Dimri, which we just shot in Croatia. We are working with all age groups. It’s great how each of them brings their own experience and knowledge and teaches us so much.
