Last week, when it was announced that Nachiket Barve and Mahesh Sherla won the National Film Award in the Best Costume Designer category for Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, though designer Nachiket was surprised, the win was not totally unexpected. He shared with us that creating costumes for a period drama is a laborious and time-consuming process that involves excessive research and he’s happy that the honour recognized the hard work that went into it.

A look at the past awards in the Best Costume Designer category reveals that period dramas often manage to impress the jury. And the reason isn’t just that the genre lends itself to grandeur, but also that period dramas help create awareness about history and culture, and in the revival of crafts and textiles. Three costume designers who have been recipients of the top honour – Neeta Lulla, Anna Singh and Nachiket Barve – share their experiences of creating costumes for period dramas.

Costume designers say that over the years everyone – be it cinegoers, critics or juries – has noticed how period dramas help in creating awareness about history and the art and craft traditions of a particular era or a place. And costumes play an important role in this.

Neeta Lulla, who has won four National Film Awards for Devdas, Lamhe, Jodhaa Akbar and Balgandharva, says, “In my journey, I am grateful that I am the only designer who has got four national awards. Two of these – Jodhaa Akbar and Marathi film Balgandharva – have been period dramas. There is no denying the fact that a period drama and the research that goes into recreating a particular era on screen create a strong cultural connect with the audience. The story becomes a medium to tell the audience about the culture of the place and a particular time period. And costumes are an important part of that story.”

Adds costume designer Anna Singh, who won the National Film Award for Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story (2005), “I feel that period dramas winning the National Film Award in different categories is also the recognition of the fact that they help in spreading awareness on history and our culture, while introducing youngsters to our heritage, the lifestyle of people in the past, etc. Therefore, it is important that research be done carefully for such projects. Even for minor details, factual accuracy should be maintained.”

While designing for any other movie requires sourcing fabrics and jewellery to suit its story, costume designing for a period film has no scope of factual inaccuracy and it often also involves recreation of fabrics and textiles that may not even be available anymore. “When I was doing Taj Mahal, the director had original paintings and actual portraits that were a very valuable input and served as a reference point, but the challenge was to recreate that look with what was available. Certain fabrics like kinkhwab, very common in the Mughal era, were not available. Our shoot location was in Jodhpur and we ended up finding carpet weavers in the area and set up a workshop to weave the fabric which was used to create costumes for the movie. So there is a lot of micro work that goes into creation of costumes for period dramas and a lot of research. It is thanks to these awards and recognitions for costume designing in films that we get to talk about this elaborate process,” says Anna.

Nachiket says that he used 400-year-old jewellery moulds and got in touch with the royal family that still had them to create designs for Tanhaji. “When you are designing for any other film, you have the option of sourcing the material and creating the look, which is more like styling. But a period film only requires designing, because everything has to be created from scratch – be it the pagdi or the armour. So, you have to recreate those keeping in mind your research about what kind of material was available then. In Tanhaji, I have worked with natural dyes from plants and minerals, as those were used at that time.”

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