All Shades Of White

Dilip Kumar was known as the Man in White, as he always wore perfectly crisp whites laundered by a trusted man who has been with his family for decades.Raj Kapoor’s  passion for the colour white was legendary. The story goes that as an impressionable teenager, he saw the wife of Balraj Sahni dressed in a white ensemble and the image embedded itself in his mind so deeply that it became a lifelong romance. His heroines tried to dress in white to impress him. Nargis came to be known as the Lady in White because she would always dress in elegant white sarees. His wife, Krishna Raj Kapoor has never been  seen in any colour other than white and one of his proteges Simi Garewal has taken her love for white to an extreme length and never appears in public in any other colour.

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There was Jeetendra who made white shoes and white drainpipe trousers a rage. Yash Chopra’s fascination for whites translated in most of his heroines wearing a a white chiffon atleast once. This fascination  can be seen most obviously in Kabhi Kabhie where Rakhee’s fangirl Pooja meets poet Amit (Amitabh Bachchan) wearing a white ‘sharara and love strikes like lightening. And Yash Chopra ofcourse created Chandni, a moonlit heroine who represented unblemished purity.

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And Rekha in Silsila, the quintessential Chandni who wore white in the key moments of the film. In the unforgettable holi song about  forbidden love and the confrontational scene with the wife of the man she loves. There was  Sridevi who took Chopra’s fascination with moonlight, petal showers and white dupattas to a new peak while playing the titular role in Chandni. Chopra’s set designers also incorporated white lavishly in sprawling living spaces.  Remember Madhuri Dixit’s boudoir in Dil Toh Pagal Hai where diaphanous white drapes almost always rustled in the wind?

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This fascination for white was inherited by scion Aditya Chopra. Simran’s white dupatta still undulates across a million minds when we remember her running across a mustard field towards Raj in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. White was made sensuous by Zeenat Aman in Yaadon Ki Baraat where she channelled Ali MacGraw, wore her hair straight and strummed a guitar to Chura liya hai in a long white dress no one but she could have carried off.

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