Dress Designer, Chic Trouble

More than a dozen brassieres were scattered across the room. And wherever the eye went, I could see padding and more padding. What's better, I was watching a tailor (or more correctly, a "master" as they're generally called) stuffing and stitching away that padding assiduously into a bra with the kind of concentration I could never have possessed.

Designer Anna Singh was goading him to complete the task faster. "Come on," she prodded him further, "Baby ke costumes lene ke liye abhi uska driver ayega, jaldi bag mein sab chaniya choli aur saare bra bhar doooooooo."

When I enquired, Anna categorically told me for whom the padded brassieres were... cautioning me that the name was to be kept strictly kept off the record. Or else, she'd give me hell later!

"This one's twin assets are twin liabilities," she said. "They practically don't exist. So I have to use padding and more padding so that it looks as if she has a bust in the first place."

Pausing ... Anna Singh made her point rather succinctly stating, "Darling, in this business we have to make melons out of lemons." Ahem.

Some minutes later, the heroine's driver showed up... and Mr. Tailor swiftly completed his padding work... stitching like there was no tomorrow! And phew... driver dear departed with the padded beauties. And Anna Singh breathed a sigh of relief.

My mind delved into flashback... and remembered the time when I'd interviewed Mani Rabadi, the "dress designer" (as cinebiz folks call them) who snazzed up yesteryear heroines for movies and who'd become synonymous with Helen, since she designed her cabaret costumes for those tantalising song numbers in Hindi flicks.

Her room was strewn with huge feathers in varied hues and in a corner... sequins, beads and other embellishments gleamed and glittered away sensuously.

"Helen also felt that the big feathers and plumes that I used for her costumes made them stand apart and gave it an individualistic touch," chirped Rabadi.

More significantly, Rabadi raised her point about how "dress designers" in moviebiz were often deprived of getting their full payments. "It's more of a norm, a kind of tradition and let's say an accepted practise not to pay any designer their full fees," carped Rabadi bitterly. "That's not to say that all film producers are the same, but most of them really seem to have no intention of paying designers to the last penny."

Revealing the modus operandi that most producers in cinedom go by, Rabadi said, "Firstly, producers raise a hue and a cry when you sound them out about the cost of a particular costume! They'll immediately tell you that they'll agree to pay only half of that. The grumbling and haggling begin from the start itself."

Added she, "Let's say that a costume with a certain profit percentage should fetch a designer Rs. 10,000. So, the designer will quote Rs. 20, 000 as the price... so that the cost of the costume is recovered. The most important part is that if they don't get their full payment before that costume has been used for the shooting, then they can well forget about getting the remaining part. The producer's policy seems to be that my purpose is served and that my scene has already been shot. So, why should I bother to pay up the remainder?"

Naughtily, Rabadi also squealed about a prominent yesteryear heroine who had no "tits and ass to speak of," in her words. Giggling away, Rabadi said, "Whenever any cameraman looked at her body profile, he'd say that she was like the number 1! No bust line and flat buttocks too. So, I'd give her heavily padded bras and blouses and had to use butt pads too for her! But after all that padding, she did look like a bomb! After all, she was quite beautiful, otherwise."

Designer Leena Daru, who'd done a whole deal of costuming for Asha Parekh and Rekha never hesitated to heap praise on both her clients. "Ashaji took a very keen interest and often gave her inputs into whatever costume I was designing. She was very particular about everything."

Rekha, almost revered for her sartorial flavour, wins the Big Vote from Daru. "Rekhaji has such a great sense of style," she said. "We'd look at different saris and then we'd end up making a new stitched sari which would be combination of the 'pallav' of one, the 'border' of another and the body fabric of a third! And goes without saying, it would be a unique one for sure. In a certain film, she had to use a lot of jewellery. Rekhaji had some fabulous silver jewellery in her personal collection. But we wanted gold jewellery on screen, so she had some of them gold-plated and we used it in the film."

Dazzling idea, surely.

(A weekly column by Ajit Ramachanddran highlighting the zany ways, highs and lows of moviebiz)