The designer, famous for his trend-defying, minimalist philosophy, is a thoughtful and colourful champion of the fulsome figures of Indian women and his native Goa
As I wait for my guest, one of the most respected designers in Indian fashion, who is also 15 minutes late, I wonder if he’s chosen a suitable venue for our lunch. The Olive Beach at Hotel Diplomat isn’t as quiet as I’d hoped. On my right is a chatty couple discussing exotic themes for their upcoming nuptials with their over-eager wedding planner; on my left, a romantic date is underway. Then again, my guest’s first choice was the bustling paranthe waali gali in Chandni Chowk. But when Wendell Rodricks saunters in in a black kurta – his own design, of course – his only regret is that he didn’t wear his blue shirt, which would have suited the restaurant’s décor, writes Priyanka Sharma.
Rodricks is drowning in work, he says. Having wrapped up a successful show at The Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012 in Mumbai last month, he now has less than 10 days to finish his collection for the upcoming Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week in October. He is also busy promoting his autobiography, The Green Room. But he insists we take our time perusing the menu. Food, after all, is as much a passion of the well-travelled designer as fashion.
His book suggests he is a bit of a wine connoisseur, but today Rodricks settles for a fresh lime water while I opt for a peach iced tea. We agree on a red pepper salsa, walnuts and rocket salad and a vegetarian mezze platter (a seasoned non-vegetarian, Rodricks is in the mood for vegetarian).
A model student as a child, Rodricks’s competitive streak prompted him to write his autobiography in a matter of two months. The impetus was a challenge from the Goa Writers’ Group (of which he’s a member). “I woke up every morning at 4 and wrote 2,000 words a day. The toughest part was to ensure that the book didn’t interfere with my fashion work.” And the victim of his tantrums and stress, he jokes, was his partner Jerome Marrel. “I made him dig up old albums, notes, agendas, diaries.” Chronicling his oeuvre of over two decades wasn’t easy. Luckily, where memory failed, mementos (he still has subway tickets from a visit to London in the 80s, for example) from his travels across the world came to the rescue. “Jerome had a habit of collecting menus at our favourite restaurants which helped me document our lives.”
Rodricks, openly gay, signed the Pacte Civil de Solidarité with his partner in 2002. The couple live in “Casa Dona Maria”, a house he dreamt of before he bought it, he says. “The oldest part of the house is over 450 years old.” Rodricks added his own touch to the villa, painting it in sky blue, terracotta red and sunny yellow. Three dogs, five cats and several employees live in the house in bustling harmony, he adds. As I question him about the difficulties of being gay in India, he emphatically claims, “I am not the voice of the gay community. I am only the voice of gay love.”
But were being gay or effeminate default positions for a male designer to survive in fashion? “No, in my case, people thought my homosexuality was a sham because I wanted to get closer to women!”
Our mezze platter arrives and Rodricks marvels at the arrangement. We dig in greedily, losing our chain of thought. Although he always had an “eye for things of elegance and beauty”, fashion wasn’t an avenue open to him as a student. “There was no concept of a ‘fashion school’ in those days,” he says harking back to a time before the National Institute of Fashion Technology was set up. “The only two avenues open to aspiring designers were JJ schools of Arts or a Ladies Polytechnic College for dress-making,” he says sardonically.
Wanting to be part of the glamorous elite, he worked in the hospitality industry for six years. He says his mother, to whom he attributes his witty turn of phrase and humour, was so happy with his biology scores, that she wanted him to become a doctor. Her reaction when he joined the hotel industry was one of derision: “You are taking up a clichéd Goan profession of a cook,” she remarked to him decades ago. Rodricks attributes his disciplined life to his stint as a manager at The Royal Oman Police Officers’ Club in Muscat.
When he decided to study fashion in Los Angeles, his mother was even more amused, he remembers. “She used to pull my leg, saying that my shop placard would read: ‘Rodricks & Sons, tailors at work’!” Today, of course, his flagship store in Goa, the Wendell Rodricks Design Space, sees the likes of actor Rekha and Malaika Arora Khan as frequent visitors. His international clientele boasts of Catherine Deneuve, Meg Ryan, Lisa Ray and Freida Pinto.
As we dig into our salad with great zeal – the fresh, well-seasoned spinach, corn and cheese work well with the mezze platter – the conversation steers to his love for creamy shades of white. When I tell him I’m disappointed he isn’t wearing white today, he candidly explains, “You see, I have a TV interview after this...and white just bounces off the camera!” White, says Rodricks, reflects his design philosophy: he is a champion of minimal, eco-friendly, resort-wear (“Naturally, because I hail from Goa”). Another reason could be Rodricks’s desire to break the mould. “When I entered the industry, fashion was all about colours and heavy embroidery. And there I came in with my humble cottons and linens in black and white, with asymmetrical hemlines,” he says self-deprecatingly. Often, retailers and fellow designers would tell him, “Thoda colour and embroidery daalo, varna bikega nahi!” Their predictions were bang on — initially, none of his designs sold. His first garment, he remembers, was bought by actor Vinod Khanna’s second wife Kavita Daftary.
As I bite into a slice of bread, generously lathering it with butter, I do a mental calorie count. Rodricks catches my discomfort and placates me. “Don’t worry,” he says, buttering his own bread, “You’ll easily fit into clothes I design.” Rodricks’s stores have a rather strange way of racking his garments — the clothes aren’t stacked according to the definitive “Large” and “Extra Large” but rather gratifying “Voluptuous” and “Voluptuous Goddess”. No woman would walk out of his store unhappy, I think.
Rodricks is also a “reluctant activist” he says. Recently, he rolled down the shutters of his boutique in Goa Marriot Resort, which was run in collaboration with a company that has been hauled up for illegal mining by the M B Shah Commission. “I don’t want to be an onlooker. I can’t watch Goa get destroyed before my eyes.” His love for Goa shines through in Moda Goa; the book, which took 11 years of research, celebrates the multi-cultural ethos of Goa through its rich costume history. “It is a legacy I hope to leave behind for my people.”
As the main course – a wood-fired goat cheese pizza with walnuts and basil – arrives, Rodricks gleefully segues into Bollywood gossip, break-ups, torrid affairs and sundry shocking revelations. All off the record, of course. As we discuss a certain actor’s anorexia, Rodricks informs me of another one of his talents, acquired after vigorous training in Los Angeles. “I can look at a woman and guess her basic measurements.” “My clothes are designed to make a woman look taller and slimmer. When she wears my designs, she must be the centre of attention. The clothes are incidental.” And the focus of his collection, he adds, is always on the real Indian woman who “measures a healthy 38’36’42’”.
Rodricks talks of his achievements with nonchalance — being the first designer to display at IDEGO, the world’s largest garment fair in Dusseldorf; Vissionaire, his line of Braille clothing for the blind; showcasing at BioFach, the world’s largest organic fair in Nurembourg where he was told, “We want more Wendell Rodricks in fashion than Karl Lagerfield.” The comparison with the legendary German fashion designer, jokes Rodricks, was a great improvement from his “aur colour daalo” days.
At this point, we are interrupted by the well-known NDTV anchor Sunil Sethi (who has an interview slot right after Business Standard) who joins us, even sampling some of our Tiramisu. Rodricks, though, continues our interview with the same attention, only smiling intermittently at Sethi, who continues to sit at our table.
Does an Indian designer have to imbibe Indian aesthetics into his work, I ask him. “Not necessarily,” he says. “But you see, nobody can do Kolkata better than Sabyasachi [Mukherjee]. Nobody can do Kashmir better than Rohit Bal.” And,” he pauses biting into a slice of pizza, “Nobody can do Goa better than Wendell Rodricks.”