Dressing for Departure: Designing Costumes for Mukti Bhavan (Hotel Salvation)

When I designed costumes for Mukti Bhavan, I was determined to resist the typical “India Exotic” shorthand—yes, the cinematic quicksand of bright, oversaturated visuals that lean into poverty porn. That wasn’t my goal. Instead, I built an aesthetic rooted in quiet dignity—reflecting the middle-class households not in noise or chaos, but in the soft, sun-faded hues of lived reality.

Building a Subtle Visual Language: Palette & Texture

I embraced muted, sun-faded tones—a tonal shift away from cliché. Through tone-on-tone layering, I crafted a subtle visual grammar: clothes that whisper, not shout, and allow the characters’ emotional arcs and the setting to breathe.

Daya (Lalit Behl) — Ritual Whites, Everyday Breath

Daya wears airy cotton kurtas with dhotis or pyjamas in off-whites—garments that feel both ceremonial and well-worn. The faint sun-fade and natural creases elevated his serenity, without ever feeling performative.

Rajiv (Adil Hussain) — Stress Contours

Rajiv’s striped polos, practical trousers, and dad jeans reflect his modern, overworked life. Adil is fit—too fit for the urban stress, I wanted visually encoded—so I introduced a subtle fake belly. Instantly, his posture softened, his gait slowed, and his internal tension became visible. A small addition, but it redefined his physical storytelling. In certain frames, glasses without an anti-reflective coating were used to mirror his surroundings in close-ups, creating a barrier that reflected his emotional distance from the world around him.

Lata (Geetanjali Kulkarni) & Sunita ( Palomi Ghosh) — Generational Contrast in Cloth

Lata wears simple cotton sarees and printed salwar kameezes in earthy tones—custom-stitched, like most women in India, who wear them reflecting her ‘function first’ attitude. Sunita’s wardrobe, on the other hand, consists of pastel candy colors which hint at modernity, whimsy, and generational difference. Streamlined short kurtas with leggings or jeans, and casual readymade salwar kurtas reflect late millennials and Gen Z’s preference for readymade garments. These were subtle signs of generational shift, honest and homey.

Vimla (Navnindra Behl) — Vintage Memory

I used embroidered vintage sarees for Vimla’s character —pieces she had carried for years. Their faded softness, lived texture, and muted palette weren’t costumes. They were memoirs draped on cloth, grounding her presence in a timeless reality.

The Hotel Community — Uncostumed Authenticity

Background residents and staff wear sun-bleached shirts, well-worn saris, and faded sandals—items that feel genuinely worn-in, not crafted. These are familiar clothes you might see on any street corner in Varanasi; they root the film’s world in true ordinariness.

Critics Noticed the Crafted Quiet 

“Filmed on a modest budget with a subtle sense of place and pace…” — Empire praised the film’s understated restraint, something I echoed through every costume choice. (Empire)

On Rotten Tomatoes, Hotel Salvation holds a 100% approval rating, with the critics’ consensus calling it “tender, perceptive, and beautifully filmed…” — a reflection of the film’s atmospheric empathy, which costumes helped shape. (Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia)

Leslie Felperin of The Guardian awarded it 4 out of 5 stars, noting Bhutiani’s film as “smart, spellbinding and achingly relatable”—and resisting emotional mawkishness. That relatability is what I wanted each garment to reinforce. (Wikipedia)

David Parkinson in Empire described it as “highly impressive debut considers mortality with wry compassion”—the same blend of restraint and empathy I built into the wardrobe. (Wikipedia)

Building a Quiet Visual Language

• Colour & Tone: By avoiding Bollywood’s high-saturation clichés, I embraced subtlety—muted, dusty shades that spoke of months or years of use, not newness.

• Layering & Texture: Tone-on-tone layers created visual unity, gently guiding the eye without disruption.

• Character Silhouettes & Body Language: The fake belly on Adil was a transformative small detail—subtle in design, but powerful in character embodiment.

• Authenticity Over Showmanship: Whether it was Vimla’s vintage sarees or the sun-dulled shawl of a background character, I prioritized lived realism over theatrical flair.

• Collaboration with Other Departments: Costume lived in harmony with production and cinematography—complementing the film’s environment rather than competing with it.

The Philosophy Behind the Wardrobe

Every choice was in service of the film’s truthfulness. Clothes had to look as though they’d been worn long before the camera arrived. Rajiv’s polos and Daya’s ritual whites weren’t just costumes — they were visual opposites telling a father-son story without a word. In the end, the costumes breathed with Banaras itself — respectful of its colors, textures, and rhythms — allowing the emotional core of the film to speak for itself.