Introductory Note

'Design' in its literal sense means 'to create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect'. Design, in general, always have a purpose be it personal gratification, solution for a problem, technical requirement, social issues or any fashion related emergence. When we talk about creating a new design, we first look into the need of the creation, work on getting the list of all what is required to be achieved by the design and ask the basic questions for its existence. While answering these questions, we end up getting a rough idea of what we want to create or what is going to be the DESIGN.

All the designs created are based on the quests of the designers and artists to add solution to a working problem like how the basic design of a dining plate was conceptualised and how is it different from the basic design of a spoon. This is because the need  of both the products are different which is the starting point of the design quest! Coming to the field of costume design, this is an area which is totally based on the need of the story to portray the characters in the best possible way. The Oxford English Dictionary defines costume as the clothes worn by people from a particular place or during a particular historical period. Also, it states that costumes are the clothes worn by the actors in a play or film to make them look like something else. In costume design, the most important factor is the realism achieved through costumes within the confines of a script.

Costume Designers start working on films at the beginning of pre-production. They are in charge of designing, creating, acquiring and hiring all costumes for Actors and extras. This must be achieved within strict budgets, and to tight schedules. Costume Designers' work is integral to defining the overall ‘look' of films, and their role requires a great deal of expertise. Their creative work ranges from designing original costumes, to overseeing the purchase and adaptation of ready-made outfits.

This blog is about the role of costumes in the Indian Hindi film industry, its modalities and working system. The Indian Hindi film industry is named as Bollywood, rhyming it with Hollywood and the letter 'B' is taken from Bombay (presently Mumbai), the city where it is established. The Indian film industry produces more than 1,000 films every year in 52 languages and over 3.7 billion tickets are sold annually. There are over 400 production houses in the country with 32 corporate houses in the business of film production. The film industry provides employment to over 60 lakh people and its current turnover is crossed 120 Billions INR for the year 2010.

The main genre of Bollywood is Masala movies which is a mix of melodrama, romance, comedy with various sub-plots in the main storyline. The main source of costumes in Bollywood have been the costume supply shops (Dresswalas) and the Dress men have been an important entity for the care and maintenance of the costumes on sets. The movies with big budget have been involving famous designers for dressing up and creating the looks of the big stars. How these costumes are put into ideation and what impact these have on the audience is a question to be explored here!!