In Netflix’s “Best of the Best,” every turn on the dance floor sends sparkles across the lehengas designed by Liz Vastola.

Written by Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam, the coming-of-age dance comedy film follows best friends Maya and Anjali, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia, as they attempt to join a collegiate Bollywood dance team at UCLA. Vastola, the costume designer on the film known for her work on “Daredevil” and “Twisted Metal,” said she was drawn to the project because she found it to be a beautiful story about two young women and their friendship. She added that to properly design pieces for the movie, she felt like she had to dive headfirst into South Asian fashion to better understand the fashion sense of the community.

“It started, for me, going at it with a massive list – with me and my department – of everything we felt like we needed to immerse ourselves with and give ourselves over to these worlds that already exist,” Vastola said.

Born and raised in New York, Vastola said she had a multi-pronged approach for finding inspiration for the film’s costumes. The costume designer said she looked at sources including magazines, Instagram and Pinterest to understand how the fashion for the movie should look.

Vastola said she also referenced dancers and choreographers when crafting her designs. She added that she took inspiration from choreographers like Usha Jay and Parris Goebel to understand how dancers specifically dressed.

“We loved using brands like Abacaxi and NorBlack NorWhite, who had a collaboration with Nike,” Vastola said. “There’s a couple books I really love – ‘The Offbeat Sari’ is an incredible book … and then I love also using places that are not a singular designer, like Kynah, for example.”

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One of the challenges of costume designing the movie, Vastola added, was balancing the aesthetic of certain outfits with the functionality necessary for actors to dance in the pieces. During a Bollywood wedding performance sequence, she said the two bridal lehengas – or dresses – required deflating the skirts by removing layers to help make it easier to move in. Vastola said the team went so far as to remove beading and replace it with sequins at certain spots.

On the dance floor, costumes establish personal style while moving with the dancer for both the fictionalized UCLA students in the film and for those performing in reality. Saanvi Thattai, a co-captain of UCLA Nashaa, the school’s Bollywood dance team that “Best of the Best” was inspired by, said the team also styles pieces for its performances based on the styles of dancing.

“Two years ago, we focused more on comfort, as well as trying to balance lightweight pieces while also being able to see the moves,” the second-year human biology and society student said. “Last year, it was a little bit less Bollywood-heavy and more hip hop and bhangra-heavy, so … we had more pants-and-shirts-type costumes. It depends on the dance style and also making sure everyone’s comfortable in what they’re wearing.”

Vastola also said she focused on the individual styles of the two main characters, Maya and Anjali. After conversations with the directors and actors, Vastola said she found Maya to have a powerful dichotomy between traditionally masculine and feminine clothes, eventually deciding on a baggy jean silhouette and a tighter top for the character.

Vastola added that Anjali’s style also evolves throughout the movie. She said she leaned more towards vintage and thrifted pieces for Anjali, trying to piece together more chic items for when Anjali cuts her hair after a production mishap and undergoes a full fashion reset to help her embrace her new style.

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Pranav Bhramasandra, another co-captain for UCLA Nashaa, said seeing a movie about his college dance team was very exciting. Although he found some aspects of the film inaccurate, such as the arguments over lead dancer positions, the second-year computer science and linguistics student said other parts of the film, like its depiction of students practicing in a parking garage, resonated with him. Bhramasandra added that he thought the characters’ casual outfits were a realistic representation of what he and his friends normally wear.

Vastola said costume design is a powerful way to give audiences insight into a character before they have even been introduced to them on screen. Vastola also said two girls shouted words of encouragement to her and actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan when she was styling a sari as they were shooting on set.

“We had to think pragmatically, but sometimes in dance movies and sometimes in college movies, I find that there is sometimes a tendency to simplify the costumes,” Vastola said. “I really wanted to push it as far as I could.”