Weaving a fantasy

Six-yards of beauty have been part of her life even before she was a teenager.

Yashodhara Roy, legendary director Bimal Roy’s daughter, is now designing cholis for sarees.

“I was a big built child and was very tall, so my father being very conservative told my mother that I should start wearing sarees. So while my older sister wore dresses, I was in a saree!” she says. Something that has never gone out of fashion, Yashodhara felt that sarees were being designed but not enough cholis.

While she started off as an assistant director, she moved on to styling and designing costumes for Govind Nihalani’s ‘Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma’, ‘Virasat’, ‘Takshak’, etc. “One film of my father’s I think I could have styled for was ‘Parineeta’. I can do the 1930s and 40s look fairly easily. The Lalita and Shekhar in his film were those you might see next door - his characters always looked so real,” she says.

The one actress she thoroughly enjoying working with was Nutan. “She saw me growing up but in ‘Muzrim Hazir’, she played a zamindar’s wife and would only want me to tie her saree.

She would always ask me if she was looking fine - the bond we shared was wonderful,” she reminiscences. In an event that comprised colour, harmony, movement and theatre, Yashodhara unveiled her collection earlier this week.
 r_preeti@dnaindia.net