The Brief:

Vishal Bhardwaj wants his films to be pretty realistic, that’s like an unsaid rule, and I know that since I have worked with him in Makdee and Maqbool. But for this film he wanted a little bit of stylisation. He calls it Susanna’s (Anna-Marie Johannes) quest for love and it is her journey through different phases of life. Priyanka Chopra is 19 in the beginning of the film and then you see her right till her late 50s. The whole brief to me was she has to be attractive and there has to be a sense of mystery to her throughout the film. But the transformation was really cool because sometimes I would see Priyanka Chopra as a 50-year-old woman in the morning and 19-year-old girl in the evening and then she would wake up her own age!

1. Susanna in her Teens

The film starts when she is in her late teens, I would say 18-19 years old. The period we are dealing with is late-70s to early-80s. She is a beautiful Christian girl — very desirable, very attractive. Here she wears a lot of dresses and smart riding attire as she rides horses and is associated in a big way with the derby. This phase also uses a lot of summer dresses, flared pants, high necks. In terms of fabric I have used a lot of laces and chiffons, the silhouettes are soft and flowing. As for shoes and hair, for a young feel we gave her fringes on the forehead and flatter shoes, mostly pumps. In terms of colour we used pure colours to create different moods in the film. So if it’s a red it’s a brilliant red dress you will see Priyanka in. In terms of taste and stylisation her look would be closest to that of Parveen Babi’s.

2. Susanna in her late-20s

In the second phase it is the late-80s. It’s a more fun-and-frolic sort of phase when Susanna is totally in love with a rock star Jimmy Stetson (John Abraham). The mood is very free. This is the time when she experiments the most with her look. It was the time when denim was in vogue. And that’s the time when Susanna was most fashionable too. We have used a lot of denims, a lot of prints and leather in terms of fabric. Knits had started coming to India around that time. In terms of cuts we have used baggy tops, high-waisted jeans and pants. And then I have used the denim skirt. Even dresses are layered with denim jackets, to show how print and denim was combined at that time. In shoes, Priyanka wears what we call belly shoes in India and boots. Her hair is permed because that was in then. We also gave her a French braid, which was known as the Sagar choti (after Dimple Kapadia sported it in Sagar). A little fringe on the forehead added a bit of softness. And a lot of chunky accessories like hoops, chunky bracelets that everyone used to wear, even the likes of Madonna or Gloria Estefan. Plus, leather accessories and leather jackets.

3. Susanna in her mid-30s

This is the time when she is married to a poet Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan Khan). This story is set in Kashmir and Susanna has totally transformed herself into a Kashmiri Muslim bride. In terms of visuals this is the most beautiful in the film. She is dressed in phirans. What I have tried to do is use nature’s colours that one can easily associate with Kashmir like kesar, henna, saffron flower (purple), turquoise and midnight blue. I have also used kashida embroidery and the silver threadwork typical of Kashmir to embellish Priyanka’s suits and phirans. The fabric is mostly pashmina, silk blends and satin. I have worked a lot with wool in this portion — a lot of the phirans have been made from shawls to get a feel of Kashmir. You will see the romance of Kashmir here.

4. Susanna in her mid-to-late 40s

This stage is with Nicolai Vronsky, who is her fourth husband. He is Russian. Here Susanna is totally dipped in vodka. As you grow up you adapt yourself to your new surroundings but don’t quite transform yourself. Keeping that in mind we have made little changes here and there. More like hint-dropping. So Susanna sometimes wears a traditional Russian head-dress (kokoshnik). We have a lot of sheath dresses. Susanna looks more constructed here — jackets and structured dresses dominate her wardrobe. The colour palette is mainly black and white. She has aged and this isn’t really a happy phase of her life. Footwear is mostly closed shoes and stilettos. Her hair is straighter and she wears pearls. This stage was very difficult for us because it’s not easy to make Priyanka suddenly look aged. Priyanka is so petite, she had to gain weight on her face, for which she followed a special diet. We added weight to her body with padding. Her waist grew about 4-5 inches and we padded the hips from beneath the dresses. That managed to change her body posture and help Priyanka gain age. We almost forgot to give her glasses but Priyanka was sweet enough to remind us herself!

5. Susanna in her late-50s

We did away with the extra weight because Susanna is much older and quite frail. There was colour added to her hair because by now she has greyed a lot. She gets married to Dr Tarafdar (Naseeruddin Shah), who’s a Bengali and goes on to becoming a traditional Bengali bride with a wedding scene where she is in all her finery. She starts wearing shankha-pala. We have kept that little detail even when she is in her western dresses. And also the time is 2000 so it’s fairly modern. At this stage we have used a lot of layering on her because as you grow older you like to wear comfortable clothes. She wears pants and knits, long basic A-line dresses with front buttons. Solid colours, no prints, a very clean look. And a repeated use of black.

 

 

6. Susanna with the short crop

This is towards the end of the film but I can’t talk about that stage because it is a giveaway for the film.

 

Symbolism and the use of black

Black has been used throughout the film. On the one hand it has all its negative connotations and on the other it marks a certain sophistication. Black is also excessively used because it evokes a lot of emotion.... There is a sense of mystery to black. So you will see Priyanka in black robes, long dresses, mourning dresses, pant suits and corsets with flowy gowns. Black will string all the beads of Susanna’s different emotions together in the different phases of her life.

payal’s picks

A black dress that Priyanka wears when she is going to her father’s funeral. Somehow all the funeral dresses and wedding dresses are very close to my heart. They add so much to Susanna’s character and they also had a big role to play in the film. Also, the Kashmir section is very visually pleasing and I am quite proud of it.

Priyanka’s role

As an actor she was involved in every stage. And whatever look we decided with Vishal, she went through all of it and helped with her inputs and suggestions. She is very open to trying and testing new things. To see if the look worked or not there were a lot of trials that we had to do and she was totally game for it all the time. So we did three or four trials at least before finalising most looks. Also during the shoot we used to keep experimenting to see what worked better. After pack-up we would take out time and do the trials... working almost round the clock.