Cinematic Sensorium- An Ode to Dressdadas

As a person who has grown up seeing the attraction and influence of Hindi film industry, it automatically enamoured me with the world of fashion. Over the last few decades, the role played by Indian fashion designers and costume designers have always been at the forefront. However, my curiosity led me to realize that there are more faces that build the narrative of a movie’s visual language through infusing their creative sensibilities.?

The dressdada, also known as dressman on the sets are people who take care of the garments for the actors and have held a key position in filmmaking for many years. From the point when the designers completed their job as per the actor’s character portrayal till the final day’s shooting in the costumes, the entire responsibility of unpacking, maintaining and logging them alongside accessories was that of the dressdada.

Even with the additional layer of personnel - for instance, an assistant to the designer (a person who is appointed to follow the garments on set) the younger generation of dressdadas feel that they are now viewed as on-set costumers, whose role is even more important and one that is indispensable.?

The dressmen credit a lot of their success to their collaboration with the industry tailors who are always accelerating the process of last minute fittings and in providing replicas of garments. The process of preparation always involved sourcing and tailoring as there was almost always a need for a viable fallback. The skills of a veteran tailor can come in handy in many scenarios, especially when there is a fashion emergency to convert an image of a dress into a two-dimensional pattern.?

The knowledge of a tailor’s garment construction and the understanding of a dressman’s regional dress style make a power duo that everybody needs. They supply such specific inputs that not only factor the “bigger picture” but also make a note of the nuances that reflect the cultural sensitivity in a nation as diverse as India.

Shifting attention to the people who (quite literally) enhance the background experience during a film shoot are the set workers, also known as the painters and mistris. This special group of people are mindful of every last detail that creates the ambience for the performance. Whether its a backdrop painter, who visualizes the rhythm and direction of the wind before he painted the clouds or the mistri who factors the functionality of the set equipment, it is that attention to detail that perfects the criteria of a set designer’s imagination.

This endless process of making and building by creatives who concentrate on such minute features of production design are able to generate the impact that is valued by directors, producers and actors who feel the energy running through the place. When a film translates on the silver screen, it truly is a striking art form that many connoisseurs acknowledge for its sheer brilliance.

The Indian film industry manages to release more than a 1,000 films a year, which surprises me as a young designer as to how little attention has been paid to the contribution of film workers in the academic or mainstream literature. With this article, I am making a conscious choice to appreciate their craftsmanship and start a conversation that makes it appropriate for this unheard dialogue to catch attention.