Designer reveals story behind Aishwarya Rai’s white saree from ‘Devdas’ climax scene.
The iconic red and white saree worn by Aishwarya Rai as Parvati (Paro) in the climax of ‘Devdas’ holds a special place in Bollywood history.
Remarkably, this stunning costume was created in less than 24 hours.
Also read: Why is Sanjay Leela Bhansali interested in tawaifs
Designer Neeta Lulla, who crafted the costumes for the film, shared in a recent YouTube interview that director Sanjay Leela Bhansali made a last-minute decision to change the saree’s fabric from cotton to silk and lengthen it to achieve a specific visual effect with the burning pallu.
This change was made just the evening before the shoot, forcing Lulla and her team to work overnight to complete the new saree.
Story behind Aishwarya Rai’s white saree from ‘Devdas’
“He (Sanjay) told me, ‘I just visualized her [Rai] running down the stairs with her pallu burning, and I need a 15-meter-long silk saree for the flutter,” Lulla shared, and added that SLB asked for two identical sarees, just in case the first one gets burnt during filming.
“Sanjay asked me if he could shoot the next day, I said, ‘Of course’ and left the studio. This was all happening at Filmistan studio in Goregaon and it was 10:30 at night by this time,” she added.
The designer said that she somehow contacted the fabric vendor via a phone booth, as there used to be no mobile phones at that time, only pagers, and convinced him to open his shop at midnight.
“He came at 12-12:30 to open the shop. I got the fabric, and since I had already called my embroidery team, they had already started stitching the borders. We finished the sarees at 6 in the morning, and I reached the set at 9:30 when the shooting was planned to begin,” Lulla concluded.
One of the biggest commercial and critical successes, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s romance drama ‘Devdas’ was based on the same-titled novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay.
It starred a hit pair of then, Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles of Devdas and Paro respectively, while Madhuri Dixit essayed the tailored role of Chandramukhi.
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The cult hit became a major commercial success emerging as the highest-grossing film of the year.
