The New Indian Express ·
Costume designer Neha Bajaj on building the visual world of Toxic
When costume designer Neha Bajaj first heard about Toxic, she knew almost nothing about the film. It was 2023, the project was still in its early stages and the script was being developed. Already having worked on Guns & Gulaabs and The Family Man, the costume designer only knew that Yash was at the helm and Rajeev Ravi would be behind the camera.
Then came a video call with director Geetu Mohandas. “She described it as a ‘NASA project’ which was hush-hush. All she could say was there would be a circus, badass women and a mafia world,” Bajaj recalls.
The lack of information gave freedom to the designer to develop her own narrative. Her first step was researching real-life women from the world of organised crime, including figures such as Stephanie St. Clair, known as the Harlem Queen. “There were a lot of women in the mafia world who held on to their femininity unabashedly. The way she dressed, you wouldn’t believe how easily she could even kill the men around. Her swag was not be taken for being soft,” she says.
