By the Sub­hash K Jha

Hav­ing been effec­tu­ally des­ig­nated a style icon Kareena now intends to go off on a long shop­ping binge in var­i­ous fash­ion capitals.

“I have to. I’ve no choice. I’m looked at as a fash­ion state­ment. Very tir­ing, but flat­ter­ing. Dress designer Aki Narula has set imposi­ble stan­dards of fash­ion for me through my films. Now I’ve no choice but to live up to those stan­dards. I’ve raised the bar for fashion.”

Then Kareena adds, “After Kam­bakkht Ishq in Qur­baan Aki has again made me look so special.”

Very shortly Kareena will be off for along global shop­ping expe­di­tion. “It becomes tir­ing for every­thing I wear to be in the media glare. I con­stantly need to be well dressed. It’s a price I’ve to pay, in more ways than one.

I don’t have a choice but to have my wardrobe filled with choices. Nowa­days when I go abroad I find myself spend­ing more time in the shops than holidaying.It’s a responsbiliy.

And I do need to be chic all the time. But my being a fash­ion icon also depends on my atti­tude and mood of the moment.”

Are there two Akkis in Kareena’s pro­fes­sional life now? Akshay and Aki Narula?

Has Kareena shifted loy­al­ties from dress designer Man­ish Mal­ho­tra to Aki Narula?

“No. I love Aki’s work and plan to use his clothes very often. But Man­ish and I go back a long way. He dressed up my sis­ter to star­dom and then me. We’re not the kind of peo­ple who move on in our friend­ships. I’m back with Man­ish Mal­ho­tra in 3 Idiots and the remake of Step­mom.

I’ll be dressed up as a styl­ish young girl. I’m plan­ning to cut my hair. I’m really proud to be called styl­ish. I like that. The clothes and designer depend on the char­ac­ter and film.

In Jab We Met I was sim­ply dressed in sal­war kameez. In my forth­com­ing films Qur­baan and 3 Idiots I am min­i­mal­ist in my clothes. But KI was about beau­ti­ful sur­faces and shal­low peo­ple. I had to dress immaculately.

The stan­dards for a heroine’s look and styling had to be raised. In terms of clothes, lopok hair and makeup we’ve done that in KI. The fact is, I wanted to look very dif­fer­ent. I wanted to look larger than life.”

Kareena gives the credit for her Kamb­hakkt look to her designer Aki Narula. “He went shop­ping for my clothes and acces­sories. This may be a masala film. But I’ve never worked harder.

In terms of styling and body lan­guage even dance and drama I really worked hard. I wanted it to be a phataka kind of role. I wanted the audi­ence to come out breathless.”

Kareena found it very hard to play the stuck up b…tch in KI. “I got to play some­one very dif­fer­ent in KI. Now when peo­ple see me in Qur­baan they’ll be shocked again.

If I can carry off Koha­puri chap­pals in Omkara I am equally at home in Jimmy Choos in KI. I’m equally proud of both kind of films. Mad­huri did a Mityu­dand and a Choli ke peeche side by side. Look at the films actors like Mad­huri, my sis­ter Karisma, Saif and Akshay did in the 1990s. And look where they got!I guess I was lucky.”

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