Wrinkles in Time: Ageing Costume in Hindi Film

Abstract

Today’s philosophy and practice of costume ageing, even in mainstream commercial Bollywood output, skews strongly towards an avowed ‘realism’. Consequently, accurate ageing and the subtle impressions of wear are valued in contrast to the ‘theatrical’ and ‘inauthentic’ ageing of most pre-1990s films (and some films still today). Designers argue that costume ageing has simply improved but this answer oversimplifies the complex narrative and organisational imperatives at stake. Older, more theatrical costume ageing, embedded within the melodramatic mode of expression, worked for its audience because of the explicit contrast it drew with costumes that were pristine. The distinction between new and aged costumes served many functions, among them the marking of vulnerable versus invulnerable bodies. Stars, dressed in new, unworn clothes, achieved their near mythic identifications in part because their costumes resisted the rigors of time and experience. In this past era, it was sufficient to pile on dirt and tear fabric to achieve effective ‘ageing’ as opposed to carefully mimicking how clothes actually age. This type of quick, crude ageing was both a consequence of—and a rationalisation for—scant time spent in costume ageing (and fabrication) in pre-production. New practices that strive for ‘realistic’ ageing thrive in expanded pre-production schedules. Alongside a resilient poetics of aged costume, ‘relaxed’ costumes lend texture to the film’s ‘lived world’. Now, the goal of ageing is to index the unseen time that characters have experienced outside the film’s temporal boundaries.