Mumbai-born WENDELL RODRICKS studied Fashion Designing in the USA and France. His first collection from Goa earned him the title ‘Guru of Minimalism’ and his next collection pioneered the concept of ‘Resort Wear’ and ‘Eco- friendly’ garments. He was the first Indian designer to be invited to present his unique garments, inspired by Goa and India, at the World’s largest garment fair, IGEDO, in Germany (1995), Dubai Fashion Week (2001), Malaysia Fashion Week (2002), the Paris Prêt-à-Porter Salon (2007) and the BioFach in Nuremberg, Germany (2012). In2007,the Confederation of Indian Industries invited him to present two fashion shows in Bryant Park, New York to celebrate the 60th year of India’s Independence. Wendell has also presented his designs at the Festival of India (1993) in Beijing and Shanghai in China, and in Sri Lanka. Instrumental in planning the first ever Lakmé India Fashion Week (LFW) in 2000, Wendell guided it in an advisory capacity during its formative years. In 2012, Wendell turned author with Moda Goa: History and Style, and his memoirs, The Green Room. In 2014, Wendell was awarded India’s fourth highest civilian honour, the Padma Shri for Art (Fashion Design), honoured by the All India Konkani Parishad, and conferred the distinction of Chevalier de l’Ordre National des Arts et Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) by the Ministry of Culture and Communication, France.
Goans are presently experiencing the last generation of Poskim— young children taken in by wealthy families and retained most often as servants. In a narrative that spans Portuguese Goa to post the liberation of India’s golden state, Poskem: Goans in the Shadows takes the reader to locales from Bombay to Lyon, Pune to Paris, and into the world of the Poskim people and Goan recipes. Through happiness and hope, despair and delusion, Rodricks writes of an unspoken, unheard of and shamefully silenced world of the last generation of a people that would soon be forgotten but for this book preserving their story for posterity.
