He may not make as much money from films as he does from retail, yet the first association that Manish Malhotra’s name strikes is the one with Bollywood. Many from his profession have followed suit. Yet, few have broken into the bastion of South Indian cinema.
Sivaji is Malhotra’s third film with Shankar, following Hindustani and Nayak. The big difference this time was that the makeover job was done on Rajinikanth. “Shankar called me when he had begun the shooting and I was really excited as I had never worked with Rajini sir. Another challenge was that with Shankar, there are different concepts. His films are larger than life, songs have so much variety and there is a lot of scope to work differently,†says Malhotra who is en route to the UK for a film awards function.
Without revealing too much of the story, Malhotra says that Rajinikanth has four different looks in the film. And for the man who comes down from the US, he has given him the casual look with T shirts and capris to casual trousers with drawstrings.
As the character moves on, he dons formal suits to some jeans paired with jackets to simple corduroys as well. For the Don look where Rajini is a larger than life character, Malhotra says he has used a lot of black suede, leather and colours like burgundy. “It is definitely a completely new look for Rajini sir and clothes which he has never worn. In fact, when we were introduced, we just exchanged our names and one day he came up and said: My daughter told me that you are such a big designer,†said Malhotra.
As for Shankar, Malhotra’s memories keep going back to the innumerable flights from Mumbai to Chennai and back. “Shankar is a man who believes in a lot of detailed work, so he wanted to see all the concepts, references, sketches that I did before we finalised.
He is very much involved,” says Malhotra who ends by saying that films may not pay as much, but South Indian cinema, or certainly Tamil cinema pay more than Hindi cinema does. Maybe Tollywood will also begin sporting Rajini sir’s cool leather look like Amitabh Bachchan’s sexy Sam look, which Malhotra designed for Kabhie Alvida Naa Kehna.
