Bollywood actress Richa Chadha made her maiden appearance at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 for Gangs Of Wasseypur. She flew down to the French Riviera again for Masaan and Sarbjit. Last year, she along with her husband Ali Fazal attended the film festival looking for partnerships to expand their production ventures. And this time around, Girls Will Be Girls will be making its premiere at the film gala.
While the Cannes Film Festival is touted to be a Mecca for films, over the years, it has also been gaining eyeballs for being a melting pot of fashion. This edition saw Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Aditi Rao Hydari, and Sobhita Dhulipala among many other Indian influencers gracing the red carpet. In an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, Richa speaks about the fashion evolution game at the film festival and shares two looks from Cannes over the years that stood out.
“I think Nandita Das, who got invited to be on the jury for Cannes several years ago, held her own in a simple saree,” she tells us, adding, “There was a lot of critique and ridicule for Mallika Sherawat at that time but if you look back those pictures from 15 years ago, she looked great! She knew what she was projecting. She knew how to make use of her full body and fitness. She created her own persona.”
Interestingly, last year, fashion police Diet Sabya too lauded Malaika’s Cannes appearances and wrote, “Body was bodying. Sexuality was owned. Media against her. The film industry refused to acknowledge her. Had the desi janta scandalised… quaking in their boots. I feel there’s a certain @mallikasherawat erasure, when it comes to discussing desi gworls at Cannes and maybe credit is due? Acknowledgment is pending? (sic)”
Any kind of judgment made on style sensibilities, Richa believes, is pervasive in the fashion industry. “The fashion industry is also very, very classist. They’ll brand you as an independent actress. I don’t really bother with people [who judge] because you aren’t in vogue with them till you are,” she smirks.
In fact, the ‘classist’ nature of the film industry too, according to Richa, is what stopped top designers from lending their creations to her initially and it was only during Masaan promotions that she finally had a stylist. “If you emerge from a film like Oye Lucky Lucky Oye or Gangs Of Wasseypur, they assume you to be the character. Only when they have a real conversation with you do they understand your pedigree. Pedigree doesn’t only have to come from Bandra or from a film family. I think I’ve tremendous cultural capital,” she states.
Not the one to mince her words, the soon-to-be mommy, however, admits that she’s still learning the whole jingbang. “It took me a year during Gangs Of Wasseypur to understand how the game works. I may not have had the best HMU team. I may still be learning all those things but I understood that if there’s a press event, I need to get a stylist to source clothes for me,” she says.
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