Rohit Chaturvedi, a renowned Bollywood costume designer, who is currently shooting for Doctor G in Allahabad, sounds excited and happy on a phone call. Ask him the reason, the 38-year-old designer says, “It’s my mother’s birthday, who has been my guiding force in my 15 years of career in Bollywood.” “She is a cinephile and I have inherited this passion for movies from her only,” recalls Rohit, who came to Mumbai years back from Kanpur to become a Chartered Accountant and landed up becoming a costume designer.
Rohit believes in the power of destiny and that’s the reason when costume designing and Bollywood happened to him by chance, he embraced it with all love and did his first professional project for Doordarshan when he was in the third year of college. While he was still in Mumbai’s Sydenham College, he was managing costume designing of 6 shows for Doordarshan.
Ask him about the big Bollywood break and he recalls, “I was working on music videos when Ram Gopal Varma noticed my work and wanted me to design costumes for a few songs for his film Darna Zaroori Hai (2006), which was followed by Shiva (2006). I remember I was shooting a song sequence of Darna Zaroori Hai when he offered me Shiva, and I had to leave the shoot in the middle and rush to prepare for my first Bollywood solo project, which has to go on the floor in the next three days.” In hindsight, Rohit feels he owes a lot to Varma.
For Rohit, it is not just about throwing clothes on characters. It is a team effort, where the vision of writer and director merged with the creative aspect of costume designer leads to a character’s image that the artist (actor) needs to be comfortable with. He admits, “For me, it is about the script, 
characters, identity, and context. I make sure to have a dialogue with actors, because at the end they only add life to clothes, and therefore their perspective and comfort are equally important.”
Rohit prefers to know the background of every character, and then he does his own research, follows references, makes sketches, mood boards, selects fabrics, does look test and at last, the final look delivery happens.
It’s his meticulous style of working that made him win the Filmfare Award for Best Costume Designer for Konkona Sen Sharma’s A Death In The Gunj. Rohit feels that working with Konkona has been one of the biggest achievements of life. He suggests, “Anyone who wishes to explore the horizons of creativity should work with Konkona.”
He admits, “The Filmfare recognition gave a validation to my work and opened a gateway of new opportunities and I guess that makes a lot of difference to a creative soul who wishes to be on the sets.”I don’t know the meaning of work-life balance because there have been days when I haven’t gone home and I have zero regrets. I love to work day in and out.”
Is it because of the disorganized mechanism of the styling and cinema industry? He denies and says, “When I started, it wasn’t organized, but today, everything is in place, from call time to pack-up, we have to work as per schedule, which makes life easier.” “It’s just I love to be surrounded with work all the time,” he admits with a wink.
It’s been 10 years since his parents moved from Kanpur to Mumbai and he has found a complete home in Mumbai, but he wishes to go back to Kanpur and relive the past. He expresses, “I want to go back, visit my school, meet my old friends and just soak myself in the place which I left almost 16 years ago.”
Before signing off to celebrate his mother’s birthday on a zoom call, Rohit says, “My journey says aloud that I am not the planning ‘type’ and to be frank, I am in a happy place and enjoying my work. I hope to leave behind a legacy that will be remembered forever.”
The post The Destined Designer: Rohit Chaturvedi appeared first on TMM.