I remember 30 years ago, the wedding palette was either pink, gold or red. I was sitting with Sooraj Barjatya ji for the wedding looks in Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, and we said, ‘Maybe we just need to change the projection of this.’ It was a big risk at that point. We kind of changed the whole colour palette and the way people dressed at weddings. Even for the bride, we used an unconventional colour. Then we tried to create embroidery which was original. While we were doing it, we didn’t realise this would become so big.

In those days, there were about 10 of us who were into the fashion scene, including Rohit Bal and Sandeep Khosla. They kept telling me, “This is crazy. What the hell are you doing? This is very gaudy.” I didn’t get the best feedback from my friends in the industry, but we decided to experiment. We put it out there, and then there was no looking back.

I would get calls from local designers asking for the original design. Today, costume designing is becoming extinct because nobody is really building characters except for three or four filmmakers. We used to build a look. We created a universe that was colour-coded and emotionally tuned to what was going on. Today, people are just putting together clothes, and there’s no specialization. So, there’s a big difference. I feel the actresses are not looking to change themselves completely to get into a character.

Back then, I’d often be the only girl on the set. Many people would wonder why I wanted to design clothes for films. It would be demoralizing because they implied that you are the wrong person for the wrong job in the wrong place. Then, I met Jackie Shroff and he had a passion for fashion. We started speaking a different language. So, there was this beautiful phase that began. The 90s were the bold years. We used to have magical moments every day. The actors in those days were conventionally good-looking. It was the era of handsome men.

— As told to Vinay MR Mishra

Bharati Dubey (MID-DAY; May 8, 2014)

Actress Celina Jaitly was in for a shock when the cabin crew of an airline apparently misbehaved with her. The actress was recently travelling to Dubai and then to the US when she bumped into friends, designer Anna Singh and jewellery designer Farah Khan Ali, in the airplane. Soon after, a steward apparently misbehaved with the actress.

Describing in the incident, Anna says, “We were meeting Celina after a long time, so we were busy chatting with her. We were seated in the business class, in the first row between the washroom and the first class. When Celina got up to go to a washroom, a steward stopped her from doing so. Moreover, his tone was extremely rude. The washroom was just four steps away from her seat, but he refused to listen to her. It was really embarrassing because he could have spoken gently instead of being rude to her.”

After the three of them got off from the aircraft, Anna confronted him. She recounts that she made it a point to tell him that this wasn’t the way to speak to a lady. “To this, he turned around and said that we were free to complain against him; he even gave his card to us.” A source close to Celina says that the actress was on her way to New York to promote a UN campaign aimed at creating awareness about the rights of the LGBT ( Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders) community. “This cabin crew attendant insisted on communicating in a disrespectful manner. He was loud for no apparent reason and when Celina asked him to keep it down, his tone and language grew worse,” says this source.

When contacted, Celina, who is currently in the US, said, “It was a strange and unfortunate event. My office has already reported the matter to the airline in keeping with the protocol and we are awaiting an answer from the airline.”