Think about an old man. Archana Rao of Hyderabad, a fashion designer who was approached by director Nag Ashwin in the beginning of Kalki 2898 AD’s story nearly four years ago, became fascinated by Amitabh Bachchan’s role as Ashwatthama in Mahabharata when he narrated it to her. She started seeing him in a science fiction version set in 2898 AD. Archana had worked with Nag Ashwin on both Mahanati and the Pitta Kathalu, Netflix Telugu anthology short film called xLife.
In another place other than India where she is currently traveling, Archana discloses the fact that Kalki 2898 AD is the first movie for which she has designed costumes for all cast members. Gaurang Shah created costumes for Keerthy Suresh in Mahanati while I have done it for Dulquer Salmaan, Vijay Deverakonda and Samantha Ruth Prabhu among few others.
From biopic to sci-fi
Nag Ashwin at the start of Kalki had only one condition: Archana would be responsible for costume design of the whole production. “It turned out to be very tough and quite a big change for me personally. From my experience as a fashion designer, I discovered that costume designing really came naturally during Mahanati.” The duo won the National Award for Best Costume Designing as acknowledgement of their hard work on this movie.
Kalki demanded something different. “Science fiction movies hadn’t come to my notice much.I knew it would be difficult but still I knew my approach was going to be fresh. So I just jumped into it.”
According to Archana, each of these worlds demanded a different design approach. “We would come up with ideas together,” she reflects on the planning phase that involved Nag Ashwin, producers Priyanka and Swapna Dutt, the cinematography department headed by Djordje Stojiljkovic and production design led by Nitin Zihani Choudhary.
As an instance in case, she speaks about Kasi where people are just managing to survive. “What kind of materials will be available? If it was the last surviving city what would they wear?” We chose discarded things such as metals and plastics and rubber synthetics… Their costumes has to be patchwork. The dresses had bee stressed for age (old) but with an Indian philosophy. For that ancient look we worked closely with the art department.” The color palette was agreed upon between the cinematography and art departments. “We made a lot of samples for look tests. Costumes and accessories had to be functional so that there is freedom of movement.”
On set, Archana says there was zero hierarchy. And everybody lent a hand to finish work on time. “For a film of this scale, we all worked with compact teams,” says Archana. A team of five people had designed hundreds sometimes even thousands costumes in the costume department alone. At first it seemed like a lot of work but it turned out to be manageable since we knew what everyone was doing.
The ‘raiders’ or the army of the Complex needed costumes and armour that make them appear strong and intimidating. Interestingly enough, this started from a mask inspired by ‘dishti bomma,’. Which is also know as evil eye doll traditionally used by Indians. “These masks were our version of dishti bomma,” explains Archana. They were made from neoprene coated clad rubber material. “We played around with poly oil as well as collaborated with art department on sculpting the metallic armours. These costumes were monochromatic in nature but we had to ensure that light bounces off the sculpted parts of the armor.”
Archana reminds us of the day I saw Amitabh Bachchan for the first time during a look test and said,. “The costume looked awesome as soon as he put it on.” Still awestruck by working with the legendary actor, she adds, “He was probably the hardest working actor on set.”
Those who have seen the animated prequel Bhairava and Bujji on Amazon Prime Video know that Prabhas as Bhairava designed an AI enabled car named Bujji (Bu-jz-1) from bits of scrap metal. “We did a similar approach for his suit and armor; thinking about how he would make something from waste material around him. We made a motif from kantha embroidery for the chest plate of his armor. His suit had to be functional for all movement so we use foam latex. A suit maker in California made up one in our minds. There are boosters attach to these shoes that can help him take off into the air. Shin guards also cover his attire.”
However, Archana does not talk about Kamal Haasan’s costumes, Deepika Padukone’s or those of people living in Shambala.
Factory-like production
Art and costume departments were almost like factories on location where they worked almost throughout day and night. “Even when we started designing months ahead for some particular needs, there were occasions. When we required 50 additional civilian clothes or more costumes for raiders and bounty hunters. Since we already had prototypes this could be manage. If we had to create something from scratch, it was usually done through molding with help of art department.”
Archana remembers that everything she did was well thought out to the minutest details. “If a character had some tattoo or scar or subtle change in hue/color of costumes then everything is going on there,” she insists.
But Kalki says that compared to designing Mahanati. Which had old movie references and photographs pointing to how someone should look like. Kalki has no reference points that depend on a new design language. “Till Nagi approved we kept improvising. During the entire process, it was exciting and challenging to work in sync with the script and coordinate with different departments.”
