Vidya Balan in her Lolita avatar in the film Parineeta

As Parineeta continues to transport more and more viewers to 1960s Calcutta, the city of Trincas and Moulin Rouge, phaetons and phuchkas, a special evening dedicated to the costumes and jewellery used in the film will bring alive the Pradeep Sarkar period piece ? not on screen but on ramp.

Calcutta, Yesterday Once More: Parineeta Collection, organised by ABN AMRO Bank on Wednesday evening will showcase the male costumes designed for the film by city-based Snehasish Bhattacharya and the Anjali Jewellers creations that adorned the Parineeta women.

But what will make the evening at The Park banquets extra special will be the film’s leading lady, actress Vidya Balan, who will walk the ramp for the first time.

“I just came to know that I have to do the catwalk and, believe me, I am nervous as hell,” Parineeta’s Lolita told Goodlife from Mumbai on Tuesday evening.

It will also be a big moment for designer Snehasish who had earlier designed costumes for Rituparno Ghosh’s Utsab before taking up his first Bollywood assignment in the Vidhu Vinod Chopra production.

“I have always had a bent of mind for period sagas and it was great fun designing the clothes for everyone from Saif (Ali Khan) and Sanjay Dutt to Benuda (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) and Achyut Poddar,” he said.

That producer Chopra and director Sarkar, both co-writers of the film, placed the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay classic in the 1960s and not in the 1910s helped Snehasish design the outfits. “It was a period easier to comprehend,” he revealed. “The brief from Mumbai was to keep the designs simple yet fashionable so that the present generation could identify with the kind of clothes the characters were wearing.”

As for the Anjali Jewellers creations, the film used everything from necklaces and mop chains to old Bengali designs like patihaar, sitahaar, kaan pasha and jhumko. Apart from gold ornaments, most of which are studded with precious stones like rubies, emeralds, diamonds and pearls, the collection included Rajasthani thewa work on gold blocks strung with black beads.

Among the men, Calcutta models like Neeraj, Amitava and Abhishek will be seen in shirts and kurtas that Shekhar (Saif) and Girish (Sanjay) wore with elan in the beautifully shot period film.

As for the Parineeta jewels, actresses June and Swastika Mukherjee will walk the ramp alongside models like Priyanka and Sudipta.

“The clothes that the female models will be wearing on the ramp are not from the film but are designed by me keeping in mind the same period that the film is set in,” said Snehasish.

But all eyes would be on Vidya, who will make a grand entry during the final sequence of the show. “I am most excited to be coming back to the city,” she said. “I came to Calcutta just after the release of the film and now when I am coming again, the film is still running to packed houses!”

For the model-turned star, the biggest reward has been the fact that the people of Bengal have loved it.

“We have done a Bengali classic and the people of Calcutta have been happy with the way their culture has been represented on screen and are still going to watch the film in its sixth week,” she added.