Raees stylist THRILLED with response to Shah Rukh Khan’s look

By Faridoon Shahryar -

December 10, 2016 - 12:21 PM IST

The look of Shah Rukh Khan as Raees is being spoken about by anyone and everyone. Women are finding it hot while men find it worth emulating. Sheetal Sharma the stylist for the film is thrilled with the response. In an exclusive with Faridoon Shahryar, Sheetal speaks about the Pathani suit, the eye makeup, the glass from Chor Bazaar and the locket that's close to SRK's heart.

Raees stylist THRILLED with response to Shah Rukh Khan’s look

Congratulations Sheetal the look that you've designed for Shah Rukh Khan in Raees is something anyone and everyone is talking about.

Thank you

Suddenly people are looking at Shah Rukh Khan in an altogether different light because he's an extremely popular guy but people might have been seeing similar look of him in past few years because of certain persona that he carries as an urban superstar How did you break this entire paradigm in the first place?

It's actually Rahul Dholakia who gave so many references to me in the starting and he has this whole thing of making things very organic. He loves the blend of little modern and old school(ness). So he gave some 13-14 albums of his family from past, from 70s and 80s. He never mentioned to me that I'll be creating look for Shah Rukh Khan. Considering I'm new in the industry so he was like I'll be able to pull it off or no. So he gave me synopsis that it's story of a small town guy, whether it's wrong or right, stealing somebody or loving somebody, he just gave me that kind of reference point. I didn't want to present something like how actors were dressed in 80s or 70s. I asked from friends, friends of friends to give me albums. I wanted to ask more Gujarati people like you know what they have from old albums of their parents. That's what I presented to him and he really liked it.

I think the Pathani suit attire, lot of actresses and women are swooning in terms of sexiness that the look exudes. Do you think it's sexy? Because Shah Rukh is Pathan but people haven't seen much of it. I think he wore Pathani suit in Hey Ram with Kamal Hassan?

Yeah, yeah. I wanted to check that film. But when I presented this to Shah Rukh for the first time he just told me one thing, whatever you're trying to do, just see to that it should not be new. It should look like that it's come out from somewhere. And if you see the film, he's just not wearing Pathani throughout. He has three phases in life so I had to create it into three phases of his life where he's growing, where he started set up of business and then how he becomes Raees. So from a very casual looking guy, pant-shirts jeans, basic clothes and then getting into Pathani that will be what you'll see when you see the film. That's where I feel that you put him into anything he just makes it very good. But I didn't want to go overboard with it. Shah Rukh Khan told me one thing that don't make me look filmy, film has to look filmy but not me in the film.

He's looking a very regular guy.

Yeah! But very very menacing.

Raees stylist THRILLED with response to Shah Rukh Khan's look2

Now this entire eye makeup that has been talked about. Did you have any conversation regarding glares and moustache as well?

Yup. This thing came when I didn't even know Shah Rukh is there in the film because they were hiding it from me that okay if they give out toh may be I start playing safe and get very filmy looking clothes. That happens, when you know it is Shah Rukh Khan or any bigger star, you actually want to play safe. But when I met Shah Rukh I realised that he's ready to experiment and he wanted me to get through this element. So in my presentation I put like a man wearing Pathani with beard. It was a wedding photograph of some relative of one of my friends. I showed it to Shah Rukh and he said this is cool and looks very organic, the look is very legit. That's where that surma ka idea came like, let's try the surma thing. Also I had a very small cut-out of a picture of Johnny Depp, I think the way he does his eye makeup, so I took a reference point of how Johnny Depp still looks very sexy and has Kajal in his eyes. So let's try and see. So these things made him confident to try Kajal and he on the spot called his makeup guy and said let's try some eye makeup and it looked so cool.

And what about the beard and moustache? Did you have any contribution in that?

The picture that we saw of the man from the wedding, wearing a Pathani and having beard. Shah Rukh's face is so expressive, I didn't want to take that thing out so if you see the beard also it's not full-fledged, it's still 7-8 days stubble and very shaped and cleaned and I think that's where small town guy look is, neatly shaped beard and moustache. If you remember people from old films used to keep the shape of beard very clean. To keep the beard also, it's very basic and also beard is metrosexual now and I wanted to keep it very masculine. So I didn't want to be very heavy on beard but yes the idea from beginning was to try beard even when I didn't even know its Shah Rukh Khan.

Apart from that for the glasses, apparently you bought it from a shop in chor bazaar and you thought it suited the character as well.

(Laughs!) Yeah. That was crazy actually we were looking at frames and Rahul Dholakia said I'm looking for old frames and that looks like it's come out from a shop and looks like a vintage. Not like 60s ka and 70s ka which everybody's wearing and walking around. Get me the real one. I thought I'll walk around chor bazaar and I found one very small shop with 15-16 hanging in corner, I told him to show, they were little dirty, little broken. I told him to get it polished and I'll buy them all. So, I brought them from stores also from Bandra and then from chor bazaar but Shah Rukh actually took the chor bazaar chashma and I was little apprehensive.

And the Taaweez is something that he's very close to as it has his parents’ photos in it

That was something very emotional. If you're talking about it, I did not want to get into a clichéd mode of getting taaweez but then Shah Rukh was like let me get this beautiful thing that I have and then maybe we can wear. Because it's not a very simple looking taaweez, Quran ke aayat hote hai woh likhi hue hai. It's one inch big pendant and when you open it, it has his parents pictures in it. We were very emotional about it that he wants to use it and we keep it very safe because it was his lucky charm. So I think it also added a lot to his character, that little old element in his neck.