The common man seems to be the flavour of the season. Hrithik Roshan’s Agneepath, Amitabh Bachchan’s Common Man and Akshaye Khanna’s Gali Gali Chor Hai will all see their leading heroes don the average Joe’s garb.

While Big B and Akshaye have essayed such characters before, this is the first time that Hrithik, usually perceived as a style icon, will be playing such an avatar. Therefore, getting him to look like Vijay Dinanath Chauhan in Agneepath’s remake was no mean task.

Costume designer Mandira Shukla, who has earlier worked on films like Vinay Shukla’s Godmother (1999), Mira Nair’s Kamasutra (1996) and Yash Chopra’s Veer Zara (2004) admits, “When you have someone as good looking as Hrithik, it’s tough to make him look like an ordinary lad living in a chawl.”

She adds that keeping in mind that his character had to come back to Mandwa and take revenge, his look had to be simple. “So I used simple and earthy fabrics. The texture, feel and space of the costumes are very simple. His clothes were taken through an aging process to give them a worn out look. Besides a black thread round his neck and kolhapuri mojdis, he hasn’t been accessorised at all.”

Was she inspired by Big B’s look in the original film? She reveals, “Karan (Johar, producer) didn’t want me to see the original. It worked as an advantage for me as I could demonstrate my creativity. We haven’t tried to copy Amitji’s look and Hrithik too liked the fabrics, kurtas and pathanis I designed and sourced.”

As real as possible: It was important to keep Hrithik’s look as real as possible. So he mostly wears simple shirt, jeans and a vest. The colour palette consisted of neutral colours like white, beige. The only time  he breaks the monotone is during a Ganpati song and dons an orange raw silk kurta. As for accessories, he has a black thread around his neck and a red dhaga on his wrist.