Mohammed Yusuf and his older brother Dost Mohammed started the well-known tailoring shop, Smart and Hollywood, on the ground floor of the Esplanade Mansion back in 1942 and had theatre personality Alyque Padamsee, actor Tom Alter and costume designer Abu Jani as their regular clients. After spending decades in a spacious 800 square feet shop, their sons who are now handling the business, have now been forced to move into a much smaller space at Third Pasta Lane in Colaba measuring 120 square feet.

Yusuf's sons, Nafees and Raish Ahmed, started coming to the shop when they were teenagers. They recalled that their father would regularly make costumes that were used in well-known plays like Tarantula Tanzi directed by Padamsee. "All the costumes in Padamsee's plays were made at our shop and our father's name would appear in the pamphlet for the play as well. Apart from getting costumes made, actors like Tom Alter, Farooque Sheikh and Mumtaz used to also get their own clothes stitched here," said Raish.