Sridevi’s iconic ‘Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja’ look was inspired by Eddie Murphy’s ‘Coming to America’

Mumbai, Sep 8 (SocialNews.XYZ) National Award-winning designer Neeta Lulla has shared an anecdote about creating late star Sridevi’s “larger-than-life” look for the 1993 film ‘Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja’. She shared that the iconic costume was inspired by Eddie Murphy’s Hollywood film ‘Coming to America’, which released in 1988.

Neeta took to Instagram, where she shared a video of herself talking about watching ‘Coming to America’ in 1988.

“1988, Coming to America released. I watched the movie and enjoyed it. A couple of weeks later, I got a call from Sridevi that I need to work on a song for ‘Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja’. When I met her, this movie and the clothes were still fresh in my memory. So in my discussion, I asked her if she could do something which is really larger than life with feathers and something that I couldn't really think of but I suddenly started to sketch,” said Neeta.

She added: “I sketched out this outfit with a lot of layering on the skirt with gold metal on the bodice and a headgear with feathers on it and she smiled, she said, ‘will you really be able to achieve this?’ I said, ‘yes, I want to achieve it’.”

The designer said that once the entire meeting was over and she had discussed and finalized this, the process of creating the garment started.

“I went into Crawford Market, the famous Crawford Market and laid my hands on these beautiful feathers that were available then which I used and created the headgear with chain mail, with stones, rhinestones, with metal pieces all intertwined together and fixed the feathers onto the headgear,” said the designer.

“The dress was finally done and I took the outfit for fittings. And she looked at it and she said, she was really happy about the whole look. And then we started to shoot. Those days, a song was shot over at least 10 to 12 days.”

“This particular song went from morning till very late in the night. I remember every day the shoot would start by 9 o'clock, but it would end around 10, 10.30."

"And I would carry the clothes back, restructure them, refinish them, check on the feathers, check on the jewelry, attach the pieces back because the dance move was really heavy and take it back for shoot the next day. And the song came out as you saw it (sic).”

In the caption section, she wrote: “..The kind of creation that teaches you to dream bigger and become a part of cinematic history. For Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja, the vision was larger than life and so was the challenge.”

“This creation was built with feathers, rhinestones and handmade and 800 metal etched with Egyptian palmette motifs . Absolutely pushing the boundaries of what could be imagined, constructed and worn on set. Sridevi herself wondered if the vision could be brought to life. An idea can be extraordinary, but needs to be bought to life through imagination, craftsmanship and sheer determination...(sic).”

Roop ki Rani Choron Ka Raja stars Anil Kapoor, Sridevi, Anupam Kher, Johnny Lever and Jackie Shroff. It was the highest-budget Hindi film at that time. The film was directed by Satish Kaushik and written by Javed Akhtar. The project, announced in 1987, was initially directed by Shekhar Kapur, who left the project halfway through; he was subsequently replaced by Satish Kaushik.

It told the story of Jugran, a criminal, who brutally murders a customs officer and a doctor. Their orphaned children grow up facing troubles and decide to seek revenge against their parents' killer.

Source: IANS