What’s not to love about styling five of Bollywood’s most good-looking men — Ranveer Singh, R Madhavan, Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal, and Sanjay Dutt? But with Dhurandhar, costume designer Smriti Chauhan had a bigger responsibility — to stay true to the world of Lyari, in which director Aditya Dhar’s spy actioner is set. The costume designer says that rigorous research by Dhar and Ojas Gautam, director’s assistant, preceded the styling. 
 
“Aditya and his team couldn’t conduct field research because the world they created was Pakistan,” she begins. So, they settled for the next best thing. “They did deep research — mostly online, and referred to many books. For the underground parties of the Karachi underworld shown in the film, [we referred to the] raid videos online. Many are available on YouTube. YouTube and Getty videos were circulated among teams so that all departments could get as much information possible,” Chauhan recalls. 

The director was certain of a few things that had to be depicted through outfits. Chauhan cites an example, “Lyari’s love for football had to be shown. So, Mukka, one of the gang members, is seen in football jerseys quite a few times.”