A designer who saw sense in sustainability

Wendell Rodricks always stood apart. Be it with his life mantra “lived less is lived more” or his now legendary minimalistic style of garments. But beyond the glamour that was a constant in his life, Rodricks was a visionary and a disciplined one at that.

His vision extended from incorporating

sustainability

in fashion to reviving the very grassroots of fashion—the weaver. In an interview to TOI, the man whose couture was created around organic fabrics and natural dyes once said, “Fashion, especially fast fashion, is a very polluting industry greatly promoted by disposable income.”

He had gone on to explain how fast fashion did not give a fig for the environment. “No one cares that two tonnes of water go into making a cotton T-shirt or that millions of tonnes of pesticides and dyes are adding toxic chemical waste to the earth, while micro-fibre waste from textiles are suffocating water bodies with plastic overload,” he said, the passion in his voice unmistakable, unforgettable.

These were words he lived by. “I have shirts over 20 years old which I have darned and reused,” he told TOI, while advocating the use of soapnuts instead of detergent. “It affords both clothes and Mother Earth longevity.”

To explain the concept, he said, “Look at women of the older generation. See how they valued every item in their compact cupboard. A tear did not necessitate the garment be scrapped. It would be darned, upcycled or recycled.”

His friend and creative director of Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop, Anjana Sharma, tells TOI, “Whether it was promoting eco-friendly fashion or the weaver or bringing the kunbi weave back from extinction, he was a visionary.”

Another friend and CEO of Malabar Escapes, Shaji Joseph, who still wears classics from his two-decade-old Wendell collection, labels him a genius. “For over a decade I worked with Wendell and the weavers of Cochin. He was fascinated by the mundu and built an entire collection with the weavers in which he lent the fabric contemporary relevance,” he said.

For any designer, volumes are most desirable, or so one would think. But not for Rodricks. In this too he believed in minimalism. Sharma said Rodricks would always tell her to buy fewer pieces, but buy that which would see her through the years. “And his clothes were like that. Timeless. Durable,” she said.

As editor of The Voice of Fashion, an online fashion and design magazine Shefalee Vasudev once said, “Wendell always stood apart. His identity is not just limited to Goa being his muse and inspiration.”


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