- 1966 (MCMLXVI)
- Living
- Indian
- Manish Malhotra, Manish Malhotra Jewellery
- •Bollywood couturier
- •1000+ films
- •Paris Couture Week (2023)
- •Diwali Diaries
Manish Malhotra
The Mumbai designer who has costumed more than a thousand Bollywood films since 1990 — and, in 2023, took the Bollywood vocabulary to Paris Couture Week.
Manish Malhotra was born in 1966 in Mumbai. He began as a retail assistant at a Bombay boutique at nineteen and drifted into costume design in 1990 when the filmmaker Sridevi hired him for the film Swarg. He has since costumed more than a thousand Bollywood films — the most prolific Hindi-cinema costumier in history.
The Film Work
His credits include Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Rangeela (1995), and the costuming of Madhuri Dixit, Kajol, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and Kareena Kapoor across their most-photographed film appearances. His on-screen silhouettes — the transparent organza lehenga, the chiffon sari with a heavy zardozi border, the deep-v anarkali — have, by cultural consensus, defined Bollywood aesthetics for three decades.
Bollywood is not film. Bollywood is a language. — Manish Malhotra
The Couture House
He launched Manish Malhotra as a label in 2005. Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, London, and Doha flagships now account, reportedly, for INR 1,000 crore (approximately USD 120 million) in annual revenue — the largest Indian designer fashion house by sales.
Paris
In January 2023 Malhotra was invited to present at Paris Couture Week as a guest member — the fourth Indian designer formally admitted after Rahul Mishra, Sabyasachi, and Anamika Khanna.
