Designer Neeta Lulla talks about the blood and sweat that went into creating the costumes of Manikarnika - The Queen Of Jhansi
BOMBAY TIMES (January 21, 2019)

One of the key elements required to make a period drama look authentic are the costumes. Designer Neeta Lulla, who has worked on the finery of costume dramas and historicals like Khuda Gawah (1992), Devdas (2002) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008), has designed the costumes for Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika - The Queen of Jhansi, too. Speaking about the project, she says, “The story of Manikarnika is known to all of us through various texts and poems. The literature about her exudes power, strength and courage of a personality, who’s said to be one of the first freedom fighters of our country. The film has a beautiful script and I feel happy to be a part of it. The process of characterisations and their interpretation through various looks and costumes has been quite challenging.”

Describing the historical as one of the biggest projects in her career, Neeta says, “It’s been a creatively satisfying project, in terms of the kind of visuals we’ve been able to create for the characters. Kangana has been able to carry off the character of Manikarnika beautifully. I feel that her own persona and personality exudes the kind of edginess required for the character of Rani Lakshmibai. She has the same inner strength and perseverance to survive the odds and fight for what’s right. It’s been an absolute delight working with her on this project, where she’s the lead and the director, too.”

DRESSING UP A QUEEN
The styling of the lead character of Rani Lakshmibai entailed an exhaustive process. Giving details, Neeta reveals, “In the film, we come across four phases of Manikarnika’s character. The first being a strong, young girl with slightly tom-boyish traits, who learns to be a warrior. We used pastel colours to bring out this look. Her second look was of a woman who is married and takes up responsibilities. So, we used a lot of vibrant colours with ornate sarees here. The third part of her life is where she experiences loss and that’s where the transition to being a warrior begins. For this phase, I chose to go with the fabric of khadi in muted Indian colours like deep pinks and greys. We tried to portray the power that Manikarnika exudes through her clothes and her visage. Lastly, she becomes the warrior queen and thankfully there were a lot of images of this period for our reference. We tried to portray her in the most authentic way on the basis of old photos and illustrations. We used achkans and nauvaris with deep jewel tones. Essentially the four distinct portrayals of Manikarnika were possible through the use of colours and fabrics.”

Her team had to research the subject and character for six months and they sourced a lot of visual material from libraries. She adds, “We had some video footage, associated with the period, which helped us out. The internet threw up a lot of stuff, too. Our effort was to lay our hands on whatever source material we could. Conducting fabric and jewellery research was important, because using the right fabrics and set pieces makes all the difference in lending authenticity to a character. We used an amalgamation of Maharashtrian and modern Indian jewellery as Manikarnika was from Maharashtra and she married Gangadhar Rao, who hailed from central India.”

‘KANGANA’S ARMOUR WAS HAND-STITCHED BY ME’
Neeta has fond memories of working with Kangana, who’s not only the film’s protagonist, but also its co-director. She says, “Kangana was very trusting of my sensibilities and ability to design the right aesthetics. At one point, she did express concern about the colour schemes being used for the character of Jhalkari Bai (played by Ankita Lokhande in the film) in a portion of the film. I was pretty amused and told her, ‘Kangana, you haven’t asked me a single question about your own clothes, but you’re more concerned about another character’. I guess, that was the concern of a director, wanting every little detail of her film to be precise.”

Just like her director, the ace designer also likes to pursue perfection in all that she does. She adds, “My research and illustrations team come up with ideas, but I prefer to work on the costumes and clothes myself. The armour that Kangana has worn in the film, the images of which have been used in the promotional visuals, was hand-stitched by me. I like to be hands-on when a new costume is worn on set. I also enjoy being involved in the creation and styling of the final set.”

Neeta likes to create an aura for a bygone era, while also making her costumes look slightly contemporary and larger-than-life. One of her favourite creations in the film was the bridal costume designed for Kangana. She reveals, “Manikarnika’s wedding outfit turned out to be quite spectacular. It took me two days just to create the jewellery for this look.” She adds that thinking on your feet is of the essence for a costume designer. “Sometimes when you’re on set, you are asked to create a new costume from scratch in a span of three to four hours. Instances like these can be quite challenging, even for the most seasoned costume designer,” she concurs.

Produced by Zee Studios and Kamal Jain, Manikarnika - The Queen of Jhansi will release on January 25.