How Baar Baar Dekho costume designer Poornamrita weaved her magic

A Potpourri of Vestiges Feature

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra

Designer and Stylist Poornamrita Singh is Costume Designer – along with Arjun Bhasin – for the much awaited Baar Baar Dekho starring Katrina Kaif and Siddharth Malhotra in lead roles. The film, directed by Nitya Mehra, is a love story set against a backdrop of time travel. It released across India on the 9th September, 2016.

Poornamrita has worked with director Nitya Mehra before in The Life of Pi and so it was a no brainer to say yes to designing the costumes for Baar Baar Dekho, especially after reading the script. She had to create looks for all the actors in the film, including Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra, Sayani Gupta, Ram Kapoor, Sarika, and Rajit Kapoor.

The script needed her to create colour palletes for different eras and research the historical styles that were being used to inspire future fashion trends. For example, she looked closely at fashion from the Edwardian era – such as high collars and big cuffs – and modernized it with hints of Japanese fashion. She combined this with modern and futuristic accessories & fabrics such as neoprene, leather and textured garments.


The film is shot in different locations including Thailand, Scotland, Delhi and Mumbai. A separate look was created for each character depending on the setting. Thailand had a bohemian vibe which includes swimwear. In contrast, Scotland was autumn & winter clothing whereas India was mostly wedding celebrations so the costume was Indian.

The single biggest challenge of being a Costume Designer for a film like this is taking a historical trend, projecting it into the future, adding a twist, keeping it within a certain colour palette that matches the season & location – and at the same time keeping it real. Since it deals with future trends, most of the garments and accessories were constructed entirely from scratch. Many garments were made with the fusion of fabric and leather. The outfits had to be paired with suitable accessories including acrylic handbags, metallic and wire accessories, transparent plastic shoes, neoprene jackets with embossed detailing, leather and metal accessories to name a few innovations.

Overall, Baar Baar Dekho was a very complex project.The looks for the film number into the thousands.  As Poornamrita puts it – “It is very rare to do a film where you have to create both present & future fashion trends – let alone five of them in one film.The story is spread over several decades and spans different eras. We started by creating different trends for each decade.You will notice, as we go further into the future, the fashion inspiration goes furtherbackwards from the 60s to the 40s to the Edwardian era.”

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra

How Baar Baar Dekho, costume designer Nitya Mehra, Katrina Kaif, Siddharth Malhotra


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