Dressing up her director's vision

It’s a stretch of our imagination, but we are guessing that if the costumes of Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela could speak, they would have a few beautiful love stories to narrate. Ah well, so much for fantasies. Thankfully for us, there was the film’s costume designer Maxima Basu, who was willing to discuss and dissect the the third best thing about the movie (according to us) besides Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone’s chemistry and Supriya Pathak’s histrionics — the oh-so-gorgeous clothes.

As the costume designer for the film’s lead man and the accompanying cast — Deepika’s clothes were designed by Anju Modi — Maxima, you can say, lived the movie. “Designing the entire look, from clothes to even the body art you see on the characters, that was what I was doing for two years! I had no personal life,” quips Maxima who can now rest easy for a job well done.

THE BIG BREAK
A former assistant director for Nirvana Films, Bangalore — ‘I worked there for the longest time’, she reveals — Maxima spent time assisting in Slumdog Millionaire and Peepli Live (where she doubled as costume designer) before Ram-Leela came through. So question her about how the movie fell into her lap and she begins with a curious bit of information.

“I don’t know how, but people have this mistaken notion that I got the film based on (designer) Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s recommendation. While the fact is I’ve never really worked with him nor did he recommend me.” The clarification done, she elaborates on the real story. “Sabyasachi, who was initially the costume designer for the entire film, eventually declined it because he was busy with some other project. But I think someone from the film’s unit, who’d seen the play Maro Piyu Gayo Rangoon, a Shakespearean adaptation set in Gujarat, had recommended me because I’d designed the costumes for the play.” The meeting that followed with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali Maxima recalls “was a quick 15-minute one.” Initially meant to design only for the principal cast, the opportunity to work on Ranveer’s wardrobe happened when Bhansali asked her to do a ‘trial look.’ The look she put together impressed the director enough to have him exult, “This is my Ram”.

RANVEER IS A DELIGHT
Loud prints, bright colours, ripped jeans, turbans and heavy jewellery... the rakish look Ranveer Singh wears in the movie might just become this year’s style cue for the country’s men. The inspiration for the look Maxima shares were the Rabari tribesmen. “Ram is a character who is exposed to the world but he lives in his village in Kutch, so his clothes had to reflect that duality,” she explains. Which is why for every ripped jeans or boots he sports, you also see him flaunting a kediyu and kohl-rimmed eyes.

Frankly, Maxima’s only too thrilled that the over-the-top look she gave her hero has worked. The costume designer also generously admits that she owes it all to the actor. “Ranveer is a delight in himself,” she exultantly states adding, “He is an actor who can carry off anything that you give him to wear. For a guy to wear so much jewellery and still look romantic... Ranveer, I think, has the ability to carry off clothes flamboyantly.  I can’t think of any other actor who can do that so well.”

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM
After two years of hectic schedules and near heart-stopping challenges, the period post the release has been good. “The day after the release felt like my birthday!” she exclaims about all the congratulatory messages that were pouring in. “For a costumer, it very rare to do a movie where the costumes are spoken off just as much as the songs or the characters.”

MORE THAN JUST DESIGNING CLOTHES
Quiz her about the ‘real’ job and importance of a costume designer in Indian films today, and Maxima articulates it well. She says, “As a film person what I’ve learnt, and realised over time, is that there are three to four people in a film who help convert a director’s vision on to the screen.
And they are the production designer, the director of photography, the costume designer and the editor.” As a costumer, her vision, she says, “is to give an actor the right mould to help him/her get in to  character; and to give the director a mould that will help make a visual difference to his movie.”

A costume I would take away from Ram-Leela:  The jeans worn by Ranveer in the Tattad song. I actually sat and ripped the jeans and added the embellishments myself. I’d also like to take the dress Deepika wore in the Ang Laga De song. I remember sitting up at 2am working on it. Every dress worn by Dhankhor (Supriya Pathak) — she was a difficult character to design for. Frankly,  I’d take everything from movie.