Neeta Lulla on sourcing Aishwarya Rai’s costume for Devdas’ climax scene at midnight: ‘With Sanjay (Leela Bhansali) you can expect anything…’

With an experience of over  40 years, Neeta Lulla is no stranger to the last-minute exigencies can that pop up when shooting for films. Recalling one such incident from the sets of Devdas, the fashion designer narrated the experience of working on the climax scene of the iconic Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, which starred Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, and Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles.

“We had just finished filming the song Dola Re Dola and the next day, we were supposed to shoot the sequence where Paro (Aishwarya) comes running down the steps with her pallu on fire. She was to wear a red and white puja sari. At about 9 pm, Sanjay asked to see the costume. We got it because it was ready. But he looked at it and said, ‘Neeta, I know I had told you it has to be cotton, but I have just kind of visualised her running down the stairs with the pallu burning, so I need a silk sari for the flutter, and I need expanse — at least 15 meters’,” she said, adding that it was the only sari in the entire film which was 5 and a half meters, the rest of the saris were about 12-16 meters. “He also said that he needed two because if one burns, the other one would be needed,” added Lulla, who described working on Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (starring Aishwarya Rai, Salman Khan, and Ajay Devgn), as “a cakewalk as compared to Devdas“.

Lulla further recounted the filmmaker’s concern about the next day’s shoot. “He asked me what I would do, and how will we manage. I said, I don’t know but can I leave? Now, this is happening in Filmistan Studio in Goregaon. That time, we had no phones but pagers. Meanwhile, he had called everyone, including Kirron Kher and Aishwarya, to find out if they had two identical puja saris; and they realised it was not available. It was around 10-10.30 pm,” recalled Lulla in a conversation with Radhika Bajoria for Wiping Out The Norm.

Lulla continued, “I went to a phone booth, and called this guy who owns a shop on Bandra’s Linking Road. I told him that I needed the whole thaan (running length of a fabric material) of white fabric, and 10 meters of red silk and some other fabric, and asked him to open the store. But he refused saying he was out partying. I simply told him that if he did not open his shop for me, I would reveal to his father that he drinks.”

The designer, who won an award at Cannes Film Festival 2023 for Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s attire in the film Shaakuntalam, further shared how she and her team managed to do the impossible. “He finally came at around 12-12.30 am. In the interim, I called my embroidery team who had started stitching small borders and sleeves. We finished two saris at 6 am and I reached back for the shoot at 9.30 am. That’s how this shoot happened,” Lulla shared.

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.