Manoshi Nath

Manoshi Nath is an Indian costume designer. Manoshi and her creative partner, Rushi Sharma co-founded Fools’ Paradise Designworks Pvt Ltd. The costume designer duo works extensively in the Indian film industry and are known for their attention to detail while creating authentic characters for their films. They are also known as designers who practice sustainability in Costume Design. Their films have won the Filmfare Award for Best Costume Design twice: First in 2009 for Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and then in 2013 for Shanghai.

Early life
Manoshi is a Bengali/Sylhety from Assam and was raised in New Delhi, where she completed her graduation. Inclined towards the arts from childhood, Manoshi apprenticed with directors as a Storyboard Artist, while still in college. She also did a brief stint in an export house where she found a perfect amalgamation of art and fabrics. Manoshi owes her technical knowledge of fabrics to her father who is a textile engineer by profession.

Career
Manoshi always wanted to work in advertising and worked with the director, Pradeep Sarkar on many TVCs and music videos. In this process, she met her creative partner Rushi Sharma in 2000, where they realized how they complemented each other's design ethos.

Manoshi and Rushi designed their first feature film with Dibakar Banerjee’s Khosla Ka Ghosla in 2006. They set up their company Fools’ Paradise in 2007, following which they went on to design costumes for Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! in 2008. They have designed character costumes for films like Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (2010), Shanghai (2012), Talaash (2012), Queen (2013), PK(2014), Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2016), Thugs of Hindostan (2018), Sherni (2021), Shamshera (2022) and many more.

The film Khosla ka Ghosla came to them just 15 days before the shooting schedule. They designed this iconic cult film on a shoestring budget and the film heralded a new wave of indie cinema in the 2000’s. Today, Manoshi and Rushi are called to design a film from the day a script is green lit and the actors are finalized.

PK became the highest grossing Bollywood film of its time, with earnings of nearly 754 crore INR. The duo's design of Aamir Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Anushka Sharma in PK received nationwide applause and recognition as well as the Screen Awards for 2015. Manoshi and Rushi laid the seeds of recycling in Costume Design from this film onwards. In PK, they bought clothes off of people’s backs in the streets of Rajasthan to get the most authentic look for the parts. Manoshi and Rushi have also taken extensive efforts to increase the sustainability of their creative process from start to finish. To promote ethical design, they source fabrics directly from weavers and artisans, provide employment with higher living wages to cottage industry workers while believing in the philosophy of buying local. They have also made great efforts to recycle pre-loved costumes from old film stocks. For Jayeshbhai Jordaar (2022), they travelled along the Kutch, creating supply chains for future projects like Maja Ma (2022) and more.

For their sustainability endeavors and SOP’s in Indian costume design, they were awarded the Elle Sustainability Award for Mindful Design (2023).

Manoshi and Rushi have been invited by SRFTI and NIFT to mentor their students on Costume Design. They have hence ventured into creating curriculum around Fashion, Costumes and Sustainability in design.