Mughal-e-azam is a project of passion: Manish

After earning a great deal of appreciation and applauses, the team of 'Mughal-e-azam: The musical', has geared up to enchant the audience of the capital city. One can witness the recreation of the legendary romance of Anarkali and Salim from September 8, at the Jawaharlal Nehru indoor stadium.

The completion of four successful seasons in Mumbai evidently speaks of the heart and soul that has been put to revive this literature. Apart from the beautiful choreography, stupendous actors and heart winning dialogues, what is potentially stealing the show are the costumes. Manish Malhotra, who has successfully carved a space for himself in the fashion industry, did a fantabulous job of designing more than 550 costumes for this classic theatre play.

Considering it to be an enriching experience, Manish mentions that he did not take up this project for money or for the sake of proving anything to anyone. Rather, he did it out of passion. It was for the first time that Manish designed something for theatre. Talking about how different the experience was from designing costumes for the movie, Manish said, "It was far more difficult comparatively, since all the 550 costumes were needed all together and every piece had to reflect the grandeur of the mughal era.

Moreover, in theatre, the actors are not superstars (they are not well– known faces) and hence it's the costume that gives them the stature." Rich fabrics like velvet, silks, brocades from Banaras, bandhani from Guajarat and what not; everything has been put into 'Mughal-e-azam'. "I had it in mind that the costumes need to raise the bar of their production," added Manish, who recently garnered applauses for his designs at the ICW 2017.

With an objective to appeal the young generation, certain changes have been made in the song sequences and presentation, without playing with the original charm of the narrative.

When asked about how he incorporated the changes in the costumes, Manish exclaimed, "I wanted authenticity from the head gear to the chain armour, that the characters are wearing. For the costumes, the fit had to be a little contemporary but not clumsy."