Nationality Indian Name Wendell Rodricks Spouse Jerome Marrel | Occupation Fashion designer Role Fashion designer Movies True West | |
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Website www.wendellrodricks.com | ||
Accessible Fashion For The Underserved | Wendell Rodricks | TEDxIIMShillong
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.
Contents
- Accessible Fashion For The Underserved Wendell Rodricks TEDxIIMShillong
- Career
- Personal
- Activism
- Awards
- References
In 2014, Government of India conferred upon him its fourth-highest civilian award the Padma Shri.
Career
Rodricks started as a catering graduate but later moved to fashion designing. 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); 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 National Museum of Costume and Fashion 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 flavors of POLO for Nestle India Ltd.
Personal
Wendell Rodricks is openly gay. He is married to Jerome Marrel in a civil ceremony in Paris that recognises union of both sexes. He met Marrel in Oman, in 1988, thanks to a friend, who set them up. Rodricks credits Marrel for his success as a fashion designer, in his biography, The Green Room.
Activism
Rodricks has written a column in the Goa-based monthly Goa Today, where he has often raised issues of social concerns and the environment. Outlook magazine commented that Wendell Rodricks Turns Into Environmental Activist. He has also spoken out against the IRFW (India Resort Fashion Week) as it "damages the environment".