Inside Toxic’s Costumes: A 3-Word Brief, Up to 700 Extras
Neha R Bajaj on dressing Toxic's gangster world from a three-word brief, with up to 700 junior artists across Goa, Macau and decades of period detail.
Costume designer Neha R Bajaj has shaped authentic worlds before, from The Family Man to Guns & Gulaabs. But her work on Geetu Mohandas’ Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups came wrapped in secrecy. Bajaj first met the director on Zoom in 2023 and later told Filmfare the project felt “almost like a NASA project.” The actual brief was just three words: “gangster world, badass women, circus.”
One world, three decades
The film moves from late-1940s Goa to 1960s Macau and 1970s Goa. To build that world, Bajaj and the team studied the palettes and silhouettes of cult projects such as Peaky Blinders, Fallen Angels and Once Upon a Time in America. But she stressed that references were only a starting point: each character had to develop an individual identity.
That meant distinct visual lanes for a very large cast.
- Nadia (Kiara Advani): elaborate circus glamour on stage, ethereal away from the ring
- Elizabeth (Huma Qureshi): theatrical, built to command the frame
- Ganga (Nayanthara): sharp power dressing with commanding energy
- Melissa (Rukmini Vasanth): quiet luxury
- Rebecca: born into luxury, with vintage pieces sourced from London
- Salvador (Darrell D’Silva): vintage three-piece suits, jewellery and tinted glasses
Psychology before fabric
Bajaj’s process does not start with sketches or fabrics. “It begins with psychology,” she said. With a strong female ensemble, she was careful that no two women repeated a visual identity. She studied real women who held power in male-dominated criminal worlds, including Stephanie St. Clair, known as the “Harlem Queen,” and Tilly Devine. The takeaway: these women did not dress like men to survive; their femininity worked as armour. That principle shaped the women of Toxic.
The logistics of believing
Period styling at this scale becomes world-building. Bajaj says close to 200 people on set on a regular day had to be dressed for the 1950s. Large set pieces—the jazz club, wedding, opium den, 1970s Goa parade, Macau, snow sequences and police world—demanded anywhere from 500 to 700 junior artists in period-appropriate clothing. Fabrics came from across India, while jewellery, heels, brooches, fedoras and other details were sourced from around the world.
Some costumes were especially difficult. Nadia’s circus clothes had to feel functional for physically demanding acts, not just pretty; Manish Malhotra designed and created those outfits. For Elizabeth, Bajaj enjoyed details such as an ostrich-feather circus cape, a matching deep-purple feather hand fan, a black cemetery gown with winged sleeves, a filigreed eye patch and a fur-lined white gown for the final scene.
Why this matters for fans
Costume design is a quiet storytelling layer. In a stylised gangster saga, every extra either makes the period believable or breaks the illusion. Bajaj hopes Toxic expands how filmmakers see her: she does not want to be typecast by one aesthetic. Next, she has completed a supernatural thriller with an international crew and is filming Farzi Season 2.
Source: Filmfare
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