Divine designs

Designer Raghavendra Rathore styles Akshay Kumar for his role as Lord Krishna in his upcoming film.

A flowing silk dhoti, crown of gold and gem-studded jewellery — that’s the way God is depicted in most Bollywood films. Now designer Raghavendra Rathore plans to change that image as he dresses Akshay Kumar who plays Lord Krishna in his upcoming film OMG! Oh My God.

“You rarely get to make clothes for God,” says Rathore with a smile. “We had to keep in mind the various biases people have about God and not make Akshay too fashionable.” Talking about the styling, he says, “Akshay’s physique is such that you can put him in anything and he looks comfortable. There are a couple of impactful scenes which needed special treatment like one where he is standing on a highrise and we needed his garments to ripple gracefully in the wind. We gave him an achkan, which, in spite of being traditional, has been tweaked by me. I’ve styled it so that it’s tough to differentiate between the achkan, bandhgala and kurta combination. One trick we used was the mixing of bright and dark colours. The morpankh (peacock feather) is a constant through the film. We didn’t want Akshay’s clothes to be overpowering.” Rathore had earlier designed for the entire male cast for Eklavya (2007).

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Rathore even asked Akshay to read out the script to understand the tone of the film. “We spent an entire afternoon understanding the dialogue delivery and gestures. The film is a satire, so we had to keep that in mind too.” Rathore says that Akshay is a top actor and his style is similar to what he likes to wear in movies.