BTS Stars! Neeta Lulla: All the saris in 'Devdas' were pre stitched and pre draped

Devdas

National award-winning fashion designer Neeta Lulla joins mid-day.com's 'BTS Stars' for a special conversation. Lulla who has worked on over 400 films recalls her work on iconic films like 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' and 'Devdas' among others. She takes a trip down memory lane about working with icons like Sridevi, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra. Find out all about her latest work with Kangana Ranaut, Samatha Ruth Prabhu and much more.

Speaking about 'Devdas' for which she won the National award for 'Best costume design' she said, "I could write a book on 'Devdas.' Each and every aspect of the journey is iconic. From the ideating process with Sanjay (Leela Bhansali) and the team to sourcing of fabrics, I was given a go ahead with something I liked. We visited Pune's film institute and watched the previous 'Devdas' films. All of us technicians were taken to Pune. I remember Sanjay asking me if I saw the style statements in the films and he told me to recrate those making them larger than life. It was like giving me the reigns to shoot forward."

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Speaking about the saris worn by the film's leading ladies Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit Nene that went on to grab headlines she said, "Knowing that Bengali saris are 5 and half vaar, I wanted to bring in magnanimity and that word was stuck in my mind because it was what Sanjay wanted as a vision. I said 'Why can't Bengali saris be 10 and 12 yards?' It was cumbersome to wear to I pre stitched and pre draped all the saris. The saris in the film are 12 metres and more. Infact the 'Dola Re' song has about 18 metres of fabric, though you can't gauge that."

Devdas had it's premiere during the 55th Cannes Film Festival in May 2002. "For Aishwarya and Shah Rukh to go and premiere the film at Cannes was like another films festival they were going to and we had to get the clothes ready. The kind of response that they got there was absolutely unreal and that put a step forward for a lot of celebrities to go to Cannes," said Lulla.