| Wendell Rodricks | |
|---|---|
| Born | Goa |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Fashion designer |
| Website | |
| http://www.wendellrodricks.com | |
Wendell Rodricks is a prominent fashion designer based in the western Indian region of Goa. He has been listed among one of India's top ten designers. His work has involved a wide range of fashion—from lecturing on world costume history to fashion journalism and styling for international advertising campaigns. He is openly gay.[1]
Rodricks started as a catering graduate but later moved to fashion designing.[2] He also acted in a film named Boom in 2003 and made an appearance in the television play True West in 2002. Also, he played a cameo as himself in the film Fashion.
Rodricks was the first India designer to be invited to IGEDO (the world's largest garment fair);[3] and the first Indian designer to open the Dubai Fashion Week.
Rodricks lives in Colvale village of North Goa and since 1993 he has gained the reputation for sending out creative collections for each fashion season. He has argued that it is a remarkable feat for a designer who despite living in a small village can still manage to direct the fashion trend for the country.
Rodricks has researched the theme of the history of the Goan costume for three years and interned at The National Costume Museum in Lisbon and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.
Rodricks has also argued that Indian clothes bear a strong influence from other parts of the globe. According to him, the Indian sari could be derived from Athenian dress, the West Chinese Kushans brought the jubba-coat and the pyjamas to India under Emperor Kanishka two thousand years ago, and the 'kurta' is a pure Moghul creation. He also argues that the Huns from Central Asia introduced the long cloaks and breeches-pyjamas. Arabs of the eighth and ninth centuries introduced skirts and robes.
The Goa-based fashion designer is critical of attempts to make beauty pageants "more in line with our culture" and what he has termed a xenophobic attitude to even simple fund-raising events which are "not part of our culture".
Rodricks recently designed the packaging of the four new flavours of POLO for Nestle India Ltd.