Lungi-clad heroes ruling the roost

T-town heartthrobs seem to be making a new fashion statement these days. Superstars Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan and Rana are shedding their urban, suave look and wearing lungis to look like a commoner, far away from their invincible and larger-than-life image to reach out to masses and classes alike.

“Telugu stars are surely going in for an image make-over and have chosen `lungi’ considered to be the attire of a common man. Needless to say all these stars are looking good in new avatars,’ says leading producer Paruchuri Prasad who feels that T-town stars are setting a new trend of sorts. “Earlier, we watched Tamil stars like Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vijaykanth and Sarath Kumar in dhotis on screen, but now it’s turn of our stars to give this old-fashioned outfit a modern tweak,” he adds.

Talking about his lungi-clad avatar, hotshot star Allu Arjun had said that `it’s a new look for me and it would impress viewers in Telugu and much more in Mollywood, who have been asking him to wear this outfit for quite some time’. While a source, close to `Katamarayudu’ unit says “Instead of dhoti, what would a village-head wear otherwise, so it was more to do with the character than to make any fashion statement but fans adored him in the simple look,”.

Similarly, director Teja says Rana wore the outfit since the role demanded such an appearance. “Actually, Rana wanted to get into the skin of the character and didn’t mind wearing the lungi, far away from his urban and suave outfits and teaser’s response proved us right,” Sustaining the trend, hotshot Ram Charan Tej transformed himself into a rustic villager with a lungi and checked shirt in his upcoming film `Rangasthalam’ and the look ably matches the down-to-earth and dumb character in the film set in 1980’s.

Director Sukumar is on cloud nine, as Charan’s poster triggered lot of hype around his village-centric entertainer. “That is what Sukumar wanted as mega fans are all charged up and eagerly waiting to watch Ram Charan in a new avatar, ” adds the source. Summing up the trend, leading director Samudra says “Telugu stars like to shed larger-than-life image once-in-a-while and scout for novel scripts, to offer variety to their fans. Now that they have got the opportunity, T-town is loaded with lungi-clad heroes.”