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 The glamour and glitz of films has dazzled and influenced audiences the world over since time immemorial – right from how they dress, to how they talk and how they woo. In South Asia especially, the influences of films are ubiquitous and inescapable – creating and recreating new types of social, cultural and personal consciousness. Films have had maximum bearing in defining dressing sense of the times – a quick look through the family albums would reveal each generation reflecting the style of the matinee idols of its era.
Bollywood (the popular name for Hindi film industry) has a strong influence, not only in India, but also in all South Asian countries. From the stitched sarees of Mumtaz of yore to the harem bottoms of Kareena today; from Dev Anand’s scarves to Salman Khan’s ripped jeans – Bollywood has been a harbinger of fashion, given its reach to the width and breadth of the country and beyond.
For many years since the inception of cinema, the Dresswallahs ruled the roost – prominent ones being Maganlal, Chotubhai and Uddhavji Mulji. In 1956, Bhanu Athaiya, who later won an Oscar for Gandhi, became the first costume designer to have entered Bollywood. Leena Daru and Mani Rabadi entered a decade later. Daru, who has designed for classics like Umrao Jaan and Utsav amongst many others, reminisces that there were no fashion courses during those times. She was a graduate from the prestigious Sir JJ School of Arts, so was Athaiya.
This was the time when there were no fashion labels, designers or shows. Yet, the fashion scene was stylish thanks to Bollywood. While 50s were traditional, 60s were naughty with tight kurti-churidaars and high-bouffant, and 70s saw disco culture.
Fashion, as an individual concept, began to take roots in the general consciousness in ‘80s. National Institute of Fashion Technology was set up in New Delhi in 1986, which became a premier destination for all aspiring designers. Fashion stores Ravissant and Ensemble opened in (then) Bombay, and fashion designers Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal, Abu Janu-Sandeep Khosla and Hemant Trevedi began to enjoy celebrity status in high society.
Costumers Neeta Lulla, Anna Singh, Vikram Phadnis and Xerxes Bhathena entered the fray during this time. They created dream outfits for stars in film after film, yet nobody knew them. It was only in 1995 that dress designing in films came of age, with Manish Malhotra’s sensuous numbers in Rangeela. With his über-chic dresses, he overnight made Bollywood the “it” thing of fashion and catapulted himself as filmdom’s first star designer.
Malhotra’s success came in terms of fame as also in terms of massive business that he generated by making replicas of his filmy costumes for private costumers. He made costume designing respectable and lucrative craft. He showed that films can serve as a virtual store to showcase one’s creations and set off immediate country-wide fashion trends that does not happen through ramps. Fashion designers, who so far frowned upon costuming, woke up to the potential of the medium and forayed into films.
While the clothes worn by film stars have always been in high demand across the country, of late it has become a fashion rage. The unorganized apparel industry copies popular film outfits in bulk, making a lucrative business; recent case being Rani Mukherjee’s kurti from Bunty aur Babli, which sold like hot cakes for over one and half years. Organized retailers thus jumped into the Bollywood bandwagon to reach the target audience through films. Hence commenced a mutually beneficial association; whereby fashion partners pay anywhere between 20 lakhs-100 lakhs to be associated with the film, and in turn get the rights to retail that film’s clothing.
Biba (an ethnic wear retail chain) was amongst the pioneers in this move, having collaborated in films like Devdas and Bhagban. Soon many others followed – Shopper’s Stop tied up with Om Shanti Om, Provogue with Wake Up Sid and Pantaloons with Dostana. These clothing and lifestyle Official costume designers of the film also benefited from this tie ups as the retail brands pay them for mass-manufacturing their designs.
Simultaneously, the fashion retailers also started tying up with renowned fashion/costume designers to bring out their signature retail lines. This was directly in response to the new found celebrity status of Indian fashion and costume designers.
The Indian fashion apparel is pegged at Rs 250 crores. However, the total apparel market in India is calculated to be about Rs 20,000 crores, out of which the branded apparel market is Rs 5,000 crores. Bollywood has turned out to be the catalyst for booming Indian retail fashion brands, to make inroads into the huge non-branded apparel market of the country. Part of the profit is passed back to the Bollywood stars by signing them for endorsements – Amitabh Bachchan (Reid & Taylor), Shahrukh Khan (Belmonte), Kareena Kapoor (Globus), Hrithik Roshan (Provogue) and Ranbir Kapoor (John Players). Of course, a lot depends on whether the designers blindly follow the western trends or keep Indian sensibilities in mind. But so far, the fashion and costume designers have been using their “Indianness” to their advantage. They have realized that a Sushmita Sen in a shaded georgette saree generates more oomph for film and mullah for retailers, then someone in a bikini.
Today, most of the top fashion designers (Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Rohit Bal, Abu-Sandeep, Ritu Beri) are designing for Bollywood, and most of the top costume designers (Manish Malohotra, Neeta Lulla, Surily Goel, Vikram Phadnis) are doing fashion shows. Bollywood stars are seen walking ramp for fashion shows and fashion models are in demand in Bollywood as actors. Fashion and fashion brands have become part of mass consciousness even in smaller towns. Designers are capable of changing national hemlines overnight through films. From a symbol of transcending into a way of living and necessity luxury, fashion is fast becoming a necessity – and the credit for this transformation goes to Bollywood. Indian fashion and Indian films are in demand globally. At this juncture, if the bond between fashion and films continue to grow stronger, both are posed for tremendous growth in the times to come. 
Semu Bhatt is a Mumbai based fashion stylist and costume designer. She is also the proprietor of fashion label
‘Atit & Semu.’
Semu Bhatt is a Mumbai-based independent political analyst specializing in security and governance issues. She is co-author of Cost of Conflict between India and Pakistan and Cost of Conflict in Sri Lanka.
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