Exclusive: ‘I would love to do costumes for Iron Man,’ says designer Neeta Lulla

My first moment of inspiration for me to pursue fashion was when my in-laws told me that ‘you need to pursue a hobby, you can't just be sitting at home and doing nothing. You need to do either cookery or learn to stitch.’ So, I opted for stitching. Little did I know that the college I went to was a full-fledged fashion institute. That's how my foray into fashion started in 1984.

When I made my first bridal outfit, something was missing, you know. That was a label. So, we hand embroidered a label on black fabric. And then we got that same label woven. And that's how my label actually came about, for the need to have something on the dress that spoke about me as the designer. That's how the first label of the brand, Neeta Lulla came about. In 2009, we changed the label format, because a lot of brides’ fathers told us that they didn't want black and gold packaging for their daughters' or sons’ outfits. So, suddenly everything changed to ivory and gold. It went through a transition of sorts from a very basic handwritten doodle label to where it is today in a proper font. Within that journey, we also developed Nyshka Lulla and other labels and it became the house of Neeta Lulla, housing so many brands under one roof.

The fashion industry has evolved by leaps and bounds. From having very restrictive information about fashion worldwide to having information at the click of your phone and having so much in terms of ready-to-wear garments or brands. From the fact that everything was done by a designer from styling shoots to designing for films and today specialized people like stylists or designers do the job. There was a huge divide between film designers and mainstream designers, where mainstream designers did not resonate with the kind of craft that film designers brought to the table. Today, every designer is also working on films. A lot of designers are working on films.

The similarity is that you're working on a very specific requirement. But the difference is vast, because when you're working on films, it is not about the inner detailing or the inner finish, it is about the inner construction of the garment. The kind of technicalities of construction that you bring to the table that make the garment look larger than life and still is comfortable and still fits perfectly and enhances a figure where it needs to be enhanced. So, that is a huge difference. For mainstream couture, it is about the fabric it is about the finish it is about the fit which has to be very, very stylish. It is about the design sensibility that needs to work today, but for films, it needs to work even after the film is released, which may or may not take six months.  

My foray into firms was in 1986. And today, I'm 400 films down. This huge burst of awareness of clothes started from Chandni to Lamhe and transcended massively into Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and then Dev Das. Dev Das was a film where for the first time any designer had taken assistants on board. For the movie, I was styling the entire female cast, except Madhuri Dixit. I was sent to Pune to FIT college to watch the prior Dev Das films and after I saw it, Sanjay Leela Bhansali categorically told me that that was not the look he wanted. He wanted me to come up with a look which is more larger than life. Normal saris are five and a half meters of a yard or five and a quarter meters.  I wanted to create this entire larger-than-life impact with 12 meters and 15 meters of fabric and I had about 20-21 sari drapes in the movie. So, I worked on the sari drapes beforehand. Tag them up, pre-draped it and I used to take it on set and we used to just tuck it into the petticoat, and that's about it. And the entire look was perfected before it went on set, even for the song Dhola re. When you see the dance, you'll see that the entire thing moves like a lehenga when they are turning. Of course, I had given the technique of the sari draping for Madhuri in the song. That was another film where there was a lot of process and technicality that went into making the saris. The blouses were all inspired by the Edwardian era. So you will see wide-neck blouses, Elizabethan blouses, puff sleeves, and ruffles. And certain blouses have used a corsetting technique as well, which you can't see from the outside. But it was an inner technique for certain kinds of looks.  

I would love to do costumes for something like Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men, Ironman, or The Transformers!

Fashion is very cyclical. Every trend goes and comes back. As a person, I would never want the bustle crinoline to come back in the way it is. It was the kind of that tight-fitting corsetting technique, where the waist was clinched to 24-inches for a woman. That discomfort I will never want any kind of woman to have ever again.

Because I'm from Hyderabad, I use a lot of Kanjivarams or Lalamkaris and being in Maharashtra, I use Paithanis. That's the kind of fabric that I resonate with, because of the beauty of its colours and motifs. I like to use Paithani to contemporarise it so that young girls like you would like to wear it, in a different avatar.   

I think in my journey of 40 years, I've seen challenges every day. Life is all about challenges, but for me, what’s important is how you use that challenge to learn from it and how you make that a process of learning in your day-to-day life. That teaches you a great deal of craft, it teaches you to resonate with your craft in a very different way. It opens your eyes to something that you've done, which may have not worked. But how do you make it work? You know, it brings you to that aspect.

Hold your seat. I would have been a racing car driver. I love car racing! I remember I went on this track in a Porsche GT 911 And I was sitting enjoying the whole process. when we stopped, the driver told me that I was the first he had seen who did not scream. I mean with all those drifts and turns and stuff, after about half an I threw up which was another story but I really enjoyed it.

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