Superstar Fashion Designer Manish Malhotra On His Love For Clothes & Movies (In That Order)

The famous Manish Malhotra is THE designer in real and on reel. Speaking with Subhash K Jha, the fashion maker reveals how it all began, shares his love for clothes and designing the costumes for film, and discusses donning his new hat as a film producer.

Being the success that you are as a fashion designer, what prompted you to turn into a film producer?
For me, I think as far as I can remember, from the age of 5 or 6, I was just born in love with cinema and clothes. I used to dance to every song. I used to cut my mother’s saree. My mother, who came from undivided India, was always conscious of English, so she gave me a tuition teacher in the first standard. And I remember during COVID when my mother told me the story that the tuition teacher told my mother , ‘Mrs. Malhotra, your son keeps commenting on my shoes and not matching my dress, but he doesn’t study.’ But still, for a mother and father to encourage my love for cinema, to allow me to go to movies in my growing years, my father had an air conditioning business, so summer holidays of two and a half months, we couldn’t travel because that was my peak season for my father. And being in Bandra, Santa Cruz, always in Mumbai, going to Gaiety Galaxy….that’s where I grew up. Movies was how I saw colour, lifestyle, songs, clothes, everything.

Which of the decades of Hindi cinema influenced your fashion sense the most?
The Seventies’ films has the biggest influence on me. Each film I watched four to five times. I recently asked my mother that, how come you never stopped me from watching films? And she said that that was the only thing you were fond of. Why should I stop my son? And rang hi laya na (it paid off). So it was always a dream to produce, direct, write, all of it. Because of the love for movies and design, I got into costumes. I never wanted to do my father’s business.

How did you formally step into fashion designing?
I didn’t have the money to study fashion. And at that time, honestly, I’m talking about the late 80s, there was no fashion designing course in Mumbai. NIFT had started in 88. And where would I stay if I went to Delhi? I used to model, and I used to work in a boutique. And then I got into movies, and I wanted to make a name there.

When did you become the superstar fashion designer of Bollywood?
Things changed from Rangeela. The first two, three years was a tough one because nobody understood styling. Whenever I asked, what is the heroine’s role? They were like, why are you asking? It’s just a glamour, this thing, you know? So coming from there and I just feel that I wanted to produce films, make films. It was during COVID when I got a lot of time and I thought, this is something I should do now for myself. The brand will continue. Every season we’ll make clothes. There’ll be good, bad, successful, all of that will happen. It’s a day-to-day routine.

You wanted to tap into your other passion besides fashion?
You could say that. What am I doing for myself? And having not been married or anything or had, you know, not had a boyfriend or anything ever, I’ve not had a child. So I said, this is something I should do for myself. And then I started, you know, thinking of producing a film and all of that. And when I started contacting the platforms, they all were talking about stars to me because I understood that when they’re looking at me, they’re looking only at stars. And I said, no, I want to make a different kind of cinema. I don’t, I just want to make, the film should speak about itself. Not that if it is Manish Malhotra, it should be all about stars.

That’s when you launched your production house?
That’s when I decided that I’ll start my production company with a very different note, unexpected, quaint films, intimate films, different actors. And that’s why I launched Stage 5 production five years ago. It’s been five years to Stage 5 production and it’s three films. The first being Gustakh Ishq. Then the second is Sali Mohabbat with Radhika Apte, which comes on Zee 5 on December 12th. And then there’s a film called Bun Tiki. Though Sali Mohabbat started first, Bun Tiki started second, and Gustakh Ishq started third.

Gustakh Ishq is special on many counts for you?
The other two are with Jio Studios as investors. Gustakh Ishq, I was investor myself. I think people who’ve had successful careers with movies and the film industry has given them so much from recognition, to money, to lifestyle, to friends, to relationships. If people like us don’t invest back in movies and invest back in credible content, then who will? Everybody keeps asking and keeps saying, why aren’t big companies making credible content? And I think, I hope this film does well, not for anything else, but it will encourage producers to put money with new actors, new artists, give them that bigger platform and all of that. As a producer, I’m hands-on because I enjoy it. I know the process.