What Happened to Khadi? Dress and Costume in Bombay Cinema

Abstract

When Himansu Rai made The Light of Asia (1925), his intertitles declared that this “unique” film was “produced entirely in India without the aid of studio sets, artificial lights, faked-up properties or make-ups.” Rai’s overt dismissal of studio environments and costumes speaks volumes about their initial role in Indian cinema. Instead of commissioning special costumes for his actors, he borrowed the best royal jewelry from “His Highness, the Maharajah of Jaipur, [who] placed the whole of his resources of his State for the making of the picture.”¹ These resources included expensive items of royal clothing, pageantry, and scenic locations. Rai stated his intentions even more explicitly when the ICC interviewed him—he wanted to produce an authentic picture that could convey a “real,” Indian historical milieu.² Regardless of whether the film is as realistic as he claimed it to be, it is striking that, at this point in Indian cinema, cinema’s use of clothing is firmly embedded in a logic of the authentic that requires it to not be designed—that it was sourced by props that were borrowed from wealthy patrons, who were not from studios designed per British or American practices. And while several studios and stars emerged in India by the late twenties, Light marks a distinct silent film practice that set itself apart from Hollywood’s vertical model—or that of other Indian production houses such as Kohinoor, where stars were contracted and their cinematic costumes were carefully vetted by the studio’s production ethic.