Nachiket Barve on winning National Award for Tanhaji: I consider myself as the student of craft

Fashion designer Nachiket Barve considers himself to be a student of craft and wants to explore more and do justice to what India and its movie making universe can do to the world. In conversation with Firstpost, he talks on his experience of making costumes for Tanhaji and winning the National Film Award.

Excerpts from the interview:

On winning the national award for Tanhaji…

It was completely unexpected when they called up to say that I have got selected for the national award. But I was very pleasantly surprised because I have put in my best effort. And the national award being the highest honour by the president of India and to get it when you were not expecting it is like a dream come true.

Not just me, our whole team is very proud of our achievements. I accept this award on behalf of my team. Literally hundreds of people were involved in the making of the costumes. There were fabric weavers, dyers, people with jewellery, leather work, people involved in turban draping. All of them have got many years of experience. There were people who created all the accessories and footwear. It was like a whole army of people creating the clothes and their hard work shows on screen. I also feel very privileged because rarely you get to design for films where the director is so forward thinking and gives you complete freedom to just explore the craft and be a part of the universe.

This was your first Hindi film as a costume designer. Tell us your experience.

It was such a brilliant experience to work with an excellent star cast whether it was Ajay Devgn or Kajol, Sharad Kelkar all of them have cumulatively many decades of experience and they were extremely cooperative. They just trusted my craft and allowed me to do things the way I wanted to do and really brought the costumes to life. Saif Ali Khan also showed me jewellery from her ancestral collection which I have actually used in the film.

What was the research that went behind making the costumes?

There was actually two years plus research that went into creating the costumes of Tanhaji. I visited museums all over the country – Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum in Pune, National Crafts Museum in Delhi, Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad. I had also taken reference from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. There was deep seated understanding and exploration of the costumes. There was also a private collection where we have used ancient textiles.

We also traced down a jeweller who created jewellery for the Chatrapati Shivaji royal family. We recrafted that jewellery. We wanted to bring about authenticity with the textile and have worked with Maheshwari, Jamdani, Chanderi.  We worked majorly with natural dyes, plants, flowers like marigold and also indigo. I wanted to bring about a different palette of textiles which will look rich yet real, authentic and tangible.

The responsibility of doing costumes for a historical film…

We need to be very careful and responsible when we do films on historical figures. People hold these figures in high regard.  Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj is treated like a deity. So we cannot go wrong with it. It was very important to get that right. I wanted people to look at the actors as characters, instead of actors whom they loved.

What are the other films that you are working on?

During the lock down I have actually completed the costume designing of three films.  I have just completed Adipurush and it stars Saif Ali Khan, Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Sunny Singh among a host of other actors. It’s set in a spectacular scale and set in a whole different era. That’s a spectacular film to design for and will be out in January. There is also a multilingual film in Marathi that I am working on and it is directed by Abhijeet Deshpande.

Designing for costumes of my films and designing for my own label are two entirely different universes. I enjoy fashion and I enjoy communicating with people across the spectrum making them feel good and bringing joy to their lives. I work extensively with craft. Today there is so much content available that research and the production has to be top notch and you just cannot afford to go wrong. Most importantly, I also feel as Indian cinema is getting global recognition and Indian films are competing with the best in the world for viewership and at international film festivals Indian films must stand out as the best in the field of craft. Most importantly I consider myself as a student of craft. I want to explore more and do justice to what India and its movie making universe can do to the world.