Mumbai: In the sea of white, yellow, red, and saffron, actor Alia Bhatt stood out in her blue silk sari at the consecration of the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya. It became the talk of the town, and not just among the Bollywood fashion brigade. Hours after fans were still second-guessing the designer, stylist Ami Patel ‘broke the news’ on Instagram. She had chosen the custom-made turquoise blue Mysore silk sari for Bhatt. It had scenes from the Ramayana hand-painted on the pallu—the breaking of the Shiva Dhanush, Dasharatha’s promise, Hanuman presenting the ring to Sita, among others.
“These miniature paintings were done in a traditional ‘Pattachitra’ style and took a 100 hours to complete in time for this momentous occasion of the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya,” Patel wrote in the caption. She went on to style Priyanka Chopra when the star visited the temple in March along with her husband Nick Jonas and daughter.
As ideology and identity are increasingly informing sartorial choices, Bollywood’s sought-after stylists are counting not just actors, but politicians, business families, and CEOs as clients. Global events like the Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar and the increasing Indian presence at the Oscars, Grammys, and the Met Gala have propelled desi stylists to the forefront of the fashion industry.
The rich, the famous, and the powerful are increasingly turning to them to find their sartorial voice. Fashion is no longer a whim—clients want curated looks for weddings, award shows, holidays, casual dinners, and even for the ‘airport walk’ where the paparazzi are invariably lurking behind the pillars. A sought-after stylist can charge up to several lakhs depending on the project and number of looks.
The job is tough. Apart from having a finger on the fashion pulse, celebrity stylists need to have the tact of a diplomat, the tight-lips of a lawyer, the patience of a priest, and the confidence of a politician.
“Trust and understanding are key to working with someone in styling, or it will definitely not be a look to remember,” says stylist Bhawna Sharma, who debuted as a costume designer in Season 2 of Zoya Akhtar’s Made in Heaven, and styled Kareena Kapoor Khan for the promotions of the actor’s OTT film Jaane Jaan (2023). “It is important to remember the personality of the celebrity one is styling, and not just get the big brands. Styling has to keep true to who they are, and that’s when the final look works,” Sharma adds.
It is a misconception that only Bollywood likes to dress up and command attention. A lot of my clients are CEOs, entrepreneurs, and even politicians
-Esha Amin, celebrity stylist
Trends, once they leave the runway, are immortalised in the social media pages of celebrities. More often than not, each look takes hours to put together, not to mention the collaborative work of hair stylists, makeup artists, and photographers. Nothing is left to chance. And with good reason too—in this era of smartphones, social media, and virality, each and every outfit is scrutinised, analysed, and also shred to pieces by fashion commentators—and potential employers.
“Now, it’s the Instagram image that also decides casting. Auditions are no longer just physical events. So, styling really makes an impact in multiple ways,” says Sanjay Kumar Dauhaliya who works with celebrity stylist Ami Patel.
Political leaders tend to opt for handloom khadi, and Indian textiles in subtle colours. Weekend casuals tend to be polo t-shirts and denims, says stylist Esha Amin who has even curated ‘holiday looks’ for them.
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All in a day’s work
Every minute of stylist Esha L Amin’s day is accounted for—she even has contingency plans if things go awry. Celebrities may want a last-minute outfit swap, or suddenly change their minds about attending an event, and stylists have to be prepared.
“Right now, we are researching for an ad for Karisma Kapoor, and we are heading to get Chitrangada ready for an event, and then there is a collaboration shoot for a fashion brand,” says Amin, ticking off the day’s to-do list in her plush Mumbai apartment. The stylist, who counts Karisma Kapoor, Chitrangada Singh, and Ishaan Khattar as her clients, wouldn’t have it any other way.
A long comfortable couch takes up one side of the room, while the other is dominated by a mirror for celebrities to check out fittings. The walk-in closet is a riot of colour, clothes, and clutch bags. Versace rubs shoulders with Masaba in wardrobes where clothes in metallics, sequins, pastels and floral prints fill the many shelves. It’s where Amin puts together the perfect look for every client.
“It is a misconception that only Bollywood likes to dress up and command attention. A lot of my clients are CEOs, entrepreneurs, and even politicians,” says Amin, who has styled editorial covers for some of India’s top magazines, including Filmfare, Femina, and Forbes India. After 12 years in the fashion industry, she knows that discretion is the key.
Political leaders tend to opt for handloom khadi, and Indian textiles in subtle colours. Weekend casuals tend to be polo t-shirts and denims, says Amin who has even curated ‘holiday looks’ for them. Election is in fashion right now, and everyone is hyper-alert.
When Amin launched her career by styling Sania Mirza for an awards function in 2012, stylists had started becoming celebrities and influencers in their own right. It was a far cry from the days when they worked in the shadows. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s Cannes Film Festival red-carpet appearances changed that especially in 2003—when critics and fans excoriated her wardrobe choices. Suddenly everyone wanted to know who her stylist was.
“There were some 47 outfits that went with her for the whole festival,” her designer Neeta Lulla later told The Indian Express. But something went wrong, and all people remembered about that year’s film festival was the actor’s fashion stumbles.
Nearly 15 years later, Deepika Padukone stormed the Cannes Film Festival for the first time in an aubergine Marchesa gown. She was styled by London-based celebrity stylist Elizabeth Saltzman. Since then, Padukone, Sonam Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra have been red carpet regulars at international events, including the Met Gala. Stylist and now fashion designer Anaita Shroff Adajania curated Alia Bhatt’s debut at the Met Gala 2023, where she wore a stunning Atelier Prabal Gurung gown adorned with 100,000 pearls.
Over the years Amin, who has 451K followers on Instagram, has built a brand around her name. Her styling consultancy, The Style Elevator, offers a comprehensive suit of services, from styling for luxury Indian weddings to daily styling and wardrobe management, personal shopping, look analysis, and virtual tips. The consultancy also offers consultation services to designers for their fashion shows and campaigns. Now, Amin is busy planning the latest collection for her own brand, Eshaa Amiin Label, which she launched in 2014.
It’s not just social media and celebrities that drive the business. According to Amin and Dauhaliya, who works with Ami Patel, their clients include working professionals who want to update their look. Many fly in to Mumbai for a consultancy session with a stylist to curate looks for the season, colour palettes, and cuts.
Dauhaliya, who grew up in Madhya Pradesh and dreamed of styling Priyanka Chopra—a dream that came true—thrives on the hectic schedules and erratic nature of the job.
“Most days, I have to get up by 5 in the morning, be on set by 7. And then I realise I’ve forgotten something, but shops do not open till 10. And you have to start calling in favours from friends and fellow stylists,” he says with a grin.
The job has no fixed hours, and no rules, only a few helpful tips.
“In this job, over-prepping is always good. If someone says red, green, blue, add magenta, hot pink, and purple too. That will make your day easy, or you’ll be running like a headless chicken,” he adds.
It takes time to build trust with celebrities. Sometimes, the ‘magical moment’ of a lifelong collaboration starts with a celebrity taking a ‘risky look’ suggested by a stylist. If it breaks the internet, the celebrity might just make the stylist their go-to person.
The best stylists are booked out weeks, even months, in advance. And last-minute appointments are reserved only for the regular celebrity clientele.
A-game unfolds on social media
A frantic call by a celebrity deciding to attend an event at the last moment translates into a stylist’s day being turned upside down. And there is no question of compromise on the quality of look, no matter how last minute the consultation is.
“You also need to be super-updated. Because there are so many brands now, and clients sometimes come up with names they have seen on social media, and we then need to source the outfits,” says Dauhaliya.
But it’s for the mega events that the stylists bring their A game—the most recent was the Ambani family’s Jamnagar festivities.
“Invites and themes were shared months in advance. So, everyone had time to source and create looks for the many celebrities who attended the events,” says Dauhaliya. Social media was flooded with clips and photos from the ‘Jamnagar jamboree’, as it’s now called.
Shroff-Adajania was the ‘architect’ of Isha Ambani’s wardrobe, one of which was a bejewelled lehenga and blouse. It was encrusted with jewellery from Gujarat and Rajasthan as well as pieces from Isha’s own collection.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s hand-embroidered ‘Sunderbans Tigress’ shirt by Rahul Mishra was another hit—especially after Bill Gates took to Instagram to commend him on his fashion choice.
Some looks were showstoppers, while others failed to make a mark, but social media fashion commentators had a field day dissecting each one minutely.
Social media has propelled stylists into the spotlight, fuelled by the interest and curiosity about who’s wearing which designer. But that has made the job more challenging, especially with the growing power of social media fashion commentators who have no stake in the game and can decimate a look in a single, 30-second reel. Celebrity weddings are taken apart for the brides and grooms looking too similar to one another, and stylists are attacked for not sourcing the best that a brand has to offer.
But a stylist’s work encompasses more than big-ticket events and in-the-spotlight moments.
‘Everybody is their own paparazzi’
Earlier, stylists would use photos shot on their phone or by paparazzi to showcase their work. But now there’s a whole new segment of pre-event photographers who tantalise fans with behind-the-scenes (BTS) glimpses.
“Arranging for the BTS pictures too is also the stylist’s job now,” Amin says. “We have to give editorial-level quality to the shoot, because the benchmark of how clothes should look has been upped. Every BTS photo is carefully curated, as are vacation selfies. Everyone is now their own paparazzi.”
I used to remember Priyanka’s or Deepika’s looks, and what they wore for a particular award show. Now, sometimes I cannot even remember my own styling, it is so overwhelming
-Sanjay Kumar Dauhaliya, stylist
The demystification of the magic behind the look has stripped red carpet events of some of their power. There was a time when people would wait for their favourite celebrities to walk the red carpet. “Now, sometimes, stars don’t even walk the red carpet. They post photos of their looks and give the event a miss,” said Dauhaliya.
Despite the boost to business, and the credits given, the scope to create a trend and leave everyone gasping for more has reduced drastically. Outfits are no longer iconic, declares Dauhaliya.
“I used to remember Priyanka’s or Deepika’s looks, and what they wore for a particular award show. Now, sometimes I cannot even remember my own styling, it is so overwhelming,” he adds.
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Too many cooks
Even two decades ago, there were just a handful of stylists, with Anaita Shroff Adajania being the trailblazer who transformed Bollywood sets and actors into style icons. Later, Shaleena Nathani joined forces with actor Deepika Padukone to craft some stunning looks.
Now, the number of stylists and celebrities have increased exponentially. But this does not translate into cutting-edge fashion. The best stylists are booked out weeks, even months, in advance. And last-minute appointments are reserved only for the regular celebrity clientele.
Bhawna Sharma, who started out as a model at the age of 16, has walked the ramp for nearly every name in the fashion world, from Tarun Tahiliani to Manish Malhotra to Anamika Khanna and Sabyasachi Mukherjee. But as a stylist, she’s not just about high-end labels—she’s a champion for rising local brands, making sure they get visibility too.
She is behind the much-talked-about looks of actor Sobhita Dhulipala in her breakthrough role as Tara in Made in Heaven. “She is my muse and I absolutely love adding on to her personality. Zoya [Akhtar] and Sobhita are the two people I can never say no to,” says Sharma.
It took six months of prep to create Tara’s look, and convey her attempt to regain a foothold in the upper echelons of Delhi’s unforgiving elite. “I have met a Tara because I grew up in Delhi,” Sharma adds.
But another Made in Heaven character, Jazz Kaur (Shivani Raghuvanshi), required a contrasting styling approach. She plays a feisty lower middle-class young woman from Dwarka who works among South Delhi snobs. “A Jazz shops from Chandni Chowk and that has to show,” says Sharma who crafted the look for every major character and all the brides on the show.
Sharma wanted Indian couture to take centrestage in the show. She got all the top designers to pitch in with their best collections. By the end of it, the godown was filled with 200 trunks of clothes put together by Sharma and her team.
The second season of Made in Heaven created plenty of buzz when an Ambedkarite-Buddhist wedding sequence was aired probably for the first time in television-film history. Styled by Sharma, Dalit bride Pallavi Menke (played by Radhika Apte) wore an off-white saree and Kolhapuri gold saaj jewellery. The bride and her Brahmin groom lit the candles for Ambedkar and Buddha.
Sharma’s bridal looks for the show have inspired many real-life brides. The increase in social media curation of celebrity looks has seen a surge in demand for stylists. But not everyone has ‘the eye’ or the experience, and clients can be tightfisted.
“You gotta show the money if you want the looks,” she says. “We have to be very strict about not working for Rs 2, no?” And then there’s the client’s taste. It’s a two-way street. “Celebrities are also sometimes tacky. I do not know the method to madness, but there needs to be some quality control. Ugly should not be applauded.”