Styling an icon like Rajinikanth for a film as big as Lingaa could be a dream opportunity, but it could also be nerve-wracking.

Nikhaar Dhawan, who has designed the costumes for actor Rajinikanth and the female leads Sonakshi Sinha and Anushka Shetty, says that she was asked by director K.S. Ravi Kumar to keep it simple. “It was made clear that costumes and the look shouldn’t be exaggerated and should not take anything away from the story. So, we kept it simple and let Rajinikanth take care of the rest,” she says, adding, “I feel men’s styling is all about simplicity and I wanted to make sure that people find the clothes wearable in public.”

Lingaa was not an easy film to work on: it is partly a period film and was shot in just six months with everybody on tenterhooks to meet the deadlines.

How tough was it to work under such pressure? “I have already worked with Ravi Kumar and I know how efficient he is. With everybody working at that pace, I never felt any extra pressure. Also, Rajinikanth makes it easy for everybody. He can put on anything and just transform it,” she says.

While Nikhaar claims to have kept it simple for the most part, she admits to have experimented when it came to designing his look for the songs. “The priority was his comfort. There were heavy dance movements in the songs, which meant that the outfits had to be light-weight. Despite this, we did try to do a fair bit,” she says.

Rajinikanth had recently said that he found it difficult to romance women who were his daughter’s age. Was it also difficult to make him look younger?

Nikhaar denies that it took a special effort.

“Once the hair and make-up was done, he didn’t need anything more to make him look the character. Of course, there was a bit of shuffling around that was done. But he has such a peculiar style of his own. Once the styling was done, he could romance the ladies as though there was no age gap,” she says.

http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/keeping-it-simple-lingaa-style/article6680202.ece