Showing posts with label Sheetal Sharma interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sheetal Sharma interview. Show all posts
Rs 150 second-hand saris were transformed into printed shirts for Allu Arjun in Pushpa 2, reveals Sheetal Sharma
9:51 AM
From Rs 150 second-hand saris to Gangubai’s vintage whites, costume designer Sheetal Sharma, who just bagged a National Award, builds characters one telling detail at a time
Nisrin Saria (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 4, 2026)
Sheetal Sharma’s Santacruz living room doubles as a home, archive and costume lab. Copper curios and family photographs share shelf space with hefty books on Chanel, Givenchy and Prada. His team gathers here to dissect scripts and build characters. At present, the room is occupied by a mythological drama set before the Ramayan.
“I don’t like working in production-house boardrooms. They feel very cubical,” says the 44-year-old, dressed in his own uniform of white linen shirt and olive-green trousers. “Here, there’s open space to think and bounce ideas around.”
There is a new object in the room too: the National Film Award he shares with Deepali Noor for the costumes of Pushpa 2 - The Rule. Sharma initially assumed the email announcing it was a scam. “With so many online scams around, I didn’t even open the link,” he laughs. A call from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting eventually convinced him otherwise. On September 22, he received the honour from President Droupadi Murmu in Gujarat.
From kitchen to costume
Cinema was never the plan. Raised in a military family between Jammu, Amritsar, Pathankot and Mumbai, Sharma first enrolled in hotel management, “because I wanted to be a chef.” Dyslexia made the mathematical side difficult, and he left after 18 months.
An aptitude test guided him towards creative work. Graphic design proved too geometric; fashion finally stuck. At the Wigan and Leigh college of fashion and management in Mahalaxmi, he learnt to sketch, cut, stitch and embroider, before studying period costume for theatre in Britain. Then came the 2009 recession and a return to India without a job.
His real education began on Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely, where a tiny budget meant Sharma did almost everything himself. “I ironed garments, distressed fabrics and learnt to navigate Mumbai’s wholesale markets.”
He still does. Crawford Market, Mangaldas Market and Chor Bazaar are as useful to him as any fashion archive. For Pushpa 2, Rs 150 second-hand saris bought off the street were cut up and transformed into printed shirts for Allu Arjun and the supporting cast. Sixteen blue saris were used to a create look for Arjun in one dance sequence alone.
From kitchen to costume
Sharma reads a script closely, and likes to pick apart every detail. He annotates it line by line, inventing histories that may never be spoken on screen: how long a character’s hair might be, whether they would have a tattoo, how much money they possess, what they would realistically buy.
Sometimes the clue comes from life. “Gangubai’s sunglasses in Gangubai Kathiawadi were inspired by women I spotted on Mumbai local trains, pairing saris with goggles. Her white wardrobe drew upon the scant historical description of Gangubai as a woman who wore white and plenty of gold. One sari I sourced was an 80-year-old piece from Jodhpur, woven with real silver thread.”
The clothes had to work with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s sets and light too. Sharma recalls how, on Kesari Chapter 2, a miniature of the courtroom helped the departments decide whether charcoal coats would photograph better than black. In Imtiaz Ali’s Main Wapas Aunga, clothes became a direct narrative device for Ishar Singh Grewal, the elderly protagonist played by Naseeruddin Shah, who has Alzheimer’s disease. A traditional Chand Bali earring changed size between scenes, while one outfit shifted from white to red without changing its tailoring, signalling the character’s growing memory loss. His private costume archive in Govandi now holds pieces from several films, kept with the producers’ permission: Shah Rukh Khan’s black kurta-pyjama from Raees, jewellery made for Vicky Kaushal in Chhaava and other remnants of characters whose lives ended when the cameras stopped.
For Stree, a vintage shawl found in Chor Bazaar became Shraddha Kapoor’s maroon embroidered jacket. When costumes from the first film could not be traced, Sharma says, “My team recreated them for Stree 2, re-dyeing and reprinting fabrics and even recreating materials that were no longer available.”
Fashion without fashion
That obsessive eye does not make Sharma particularly interested in fashion trends. He cheerfully admits that contemporary terminology can escape him and prefers the permanence of a trench coat or Patiala salwar to whatever happens to be fashionable that season.
It may explain why his work rarely feels like celebrity styling. On Animal, where he joined after four previous costume designers, Ranbir Kapoor ended up in the linen shirts Sharma himself favours. “On set I was told, ‘You made him like you,’” he recalls. Nor does he believe cinema must always dress people exactly as they dress in life.
“Films also need to sell aspirations,” he says. “We are city people, so we might say, ‘Who does stuff like that?’ But in small towns, people really adore those things. They aspire to go to college looking like that. In the end, films are selling dreams.”
His own taste remains considerably less grand. If he ever starts a clothing label, Sharma says, it will be “easy and breezy”, built around simplicity rather than trends. Which seems fitting.
After years of making clothes speak for everyone else, Sharma is happiest when his own clothes speak the least.
Sheetal Sharma decodes Shah Rukh Khan's look in Raees
4:06 PM
From his glasses, surma to his clothes, stylist Sheetal Sharma deciphers Shah Rukh Khan's look as the Gujarati don from his upcoming film 'Raees'
Sonil Dedhia and Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; December 9, 2016)
Glasses
When I heard SRK's name, I was like, glasses? SRK's eyes do the talking, so I was apprehensive. But, he loved this idea too. I showed him 10 options and he chose a pair of plastic chashmas I'd bought from a dingy shop in Chor Bazaar. He said it was a bit distorted and not aligned, which suited his character. He said contact lenses has worked for him in Baazigar, and he was game to try eye gear again.
Surma
The brief given to me was that it would be a masculine, manipulative character. I went ahead with kohl eyes for a gritty look. When told about SRK's casting, I wasn't sure if he would wear surma, but he readily agreed. When we met for the first time, he got his make-up man and put on the surma, which has now become a hit.
Clothes
SRK told me to keep things as organic as I could. So, I referred to old photo albums of my friends from Gujarat. I wanted to know how their grandparents dressed. I have used terricot, teriwool and velvet fabrics, which are not used anymore. I shopped for it from Ahmedabad, Surat and Junagadh. SRK would wear them, stretch in them, sit in them and say 'let them take the shape of my body'.
Taweez
The film shows a strong bond between his character and his mother. For a symbolic effect, we thought of a taweez (locket) on the arms, but it was clichéd. Later, Shah Rukh showed us a pendant — his lucky charm — which he never worn in any of his films. There is an aayat (verse) from Quran inscribed on it and a photo of his parents.
Sheetal Sharma
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