"His fashion was like the cool breeze," says Tarun Tahiliani in what could be a poetic eulogy to India's masterful couturier, the late Wendell Rodricks who passed on last week at his home in Goa. In a three-decade-long career of designing, Rodricks rarely stopped innovating. He was known to challenge the conventions of Indian fashion and tailoring rules to give a chance to conceptual and imaginative possibilities. It was his touchstone.

Rodricks learned fashion in Los Angeles and Paris. After designing for Garden Vareli, Lakmé and DeBeers, Rodricks established his own label in 1989 with a show at the Regal Room of the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. A collection of 12 ensembles had only six complete outfits. He didn't have the funds to make the remaining six "bottoms" that would be paired with the organza tunics. Funding footwear for the models was out of the question. So he sent his models down the ramp, barefeet. When each of the first six models returned back into the wings, they hurried out of the bottoms to hand them to the next lot.