‘The underskirt became an effing trend!’

Veteran costume designer Ana Singh takes us back to the time she designed Madhuri’s iconic green and white lehenga

Ana Singh was in her early twenties when director Sooraj Barjatya approached her to design costumes for Madhuri Dixit and Salman Khan starrer Hum Aapke Hain Kon. The film went on to become the highest-grossing family entertainer of all time. Almost three decades later, the costumes designed by Singh are part of Karan Torani’s mood-board. “It’s quite sweet to see today’s kids referencing the film’s costumes,” says Singh to mid-day. 

The stalwart’s enviable design career spans 1013 films, almost half of which released in the ’90s. The full-sleeved emerald blouse with an embellished neckline paired with a pearl lehenga for the Joote de do song is arguably the biggest fashion moment of the ’90s. Surprisingly, the lehenga had left Singh howling. “The final lehenga was ready. I had stitched it myself on the sewing machine. But on the day of the shoot, the helper burned it while ironing. I broke down,” Singh confides. 

Since the set was ready, there was no way she could remake the piece in two hours. What you see in the film is a thick-silk, pearl underskirt (petticoat) which was actually meant to sit under the lehenga to help add movement to the main outfit. “I was disappointed. I had this vision of the full look. [But] the underskirt ended up as the main skirt,” she laughs. “And would you believe that it went on to become an effing trend!”

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