After 40 years of ruling the roost in Indian fashion, Ritu Kumar has a new interest - cinema.

"I am thinking more of cinema," tells Kumar. "It is a very exciting field and I want to explore it further. It is really captivating."

Kumar has done costumes for three films - Deepa Mehta's "Bollywood/Hollywood" and her filmmaker son Ashvin's "Road To Ladakh" and this year's Oscar nominated "Little Terrorist".

"Bollywood/Hollywood was great fun," said Kumar, who is interested in doing contemporary films where she could create characters through clothes.

"Deepa and me worked totally on e-mail. It was very organised. The full script was handed to me. Nothing changed on location and I sent her pictures on e-mail and we would finalise things. I only went on location once."

Kumar is not very keen on the usual hustle-bustle of Bollywood, where scripts often change on location and sudden new elements are brought in.

"I cannot go and sit on a set. That is very difficult, however, I would love to work on more organised projects."

She would also be keen to do a period film, especially on the Mughal era.

"A lot of the real Mughal costumes are not reflected in the films. They all tend to put the characters in their frocks and that's it. True Mughal clothes were wonderfully subtle and that's the mood I would love to create."

That's the kind of challenge when she did "Little Terrorist".

"Ashvin told me that the moment people see the characters it should be apparent that one is an Indian and the other a Pakistani.

"We did a lot research and luckily we found people who were making the local clothes in the areas where we shot. And in LA they asked me, 'Where did you get those amazing costumes from?'

"And I told them that many people actually wear these clothes in our part of the world."

Kumar's next project would be her son's new film "Forest".

"The characters in 'Forest' are all very contemporary. And we are working to create individual personalities through their clothes.

"Forest gives me a unique scope to give a feel to each character through clothes," said Kumar.