A genre like science fiction, with its elaborate canvas, demands extensive world-building and detailing. Kalki 2898 AD, the latest sci-fi outing, posed a different challenge to costume designer Archana Rao and her team, as they not only had to think about the dystopian future the story is set in, but also had to design costumes for Indian mythological characters like Ashwatthama. The irony, however, lies in her taste of genres.
“I don’t watch sci-fi. That’s the only genre I avoid,” says Archana rather candidly, However, while working on the film, her indifference to the genre did not impede her work as she received ample guidance from her director, Nag Ashwin. “Sometimes, I would come up with ideas that I thought were innovative, but Nagi would have seen it elsewhere.
He would not mince words to tell me to rework my designs,” she says. Archana further adds that Nag Ashwin was very particular with his vision for the costumes. “We used a subgenre called Spicepunk, an Indian version of Cyberpunk, for the bounty hunters in the film.
We never used any costume because it looked cool. There was a reason behind every thing.” As Ashwatthama, played by Amitabh Bachchan, is one of the main leads of the film, one would assume that that would have been the toughest costume to design.
On the contrary, Archana says that Ashwatthama’s costumes were one of the attires they finalised early on. “The minute Bachchan sir wore it, we had our Ashwatthama,” she shares. While Na.