Wendell shuts Goa boutique to protest mining

To raise his voice against illegal mining, designer

Wendell Rodricks has shut his boutique in a five-star resort. The resort is run in collaboration with a company that has been hauled up for illegal mining by the MB Shah Commission, which unearthed a Rs 35,000 crores mining scam in Goa.

While anti-mining activists have welcomed the move to shut shop, Rodricks, who is passionate about issues related to the state’s environment has said, “We’re shutting our store as we were not aware of the mining atrocities. For a better Goa, it is best we part ways.” His store had been operating from the Goa Marriott resort and spa which is managed by the global hospitality giants Marriott in partnership with Dattaraj Salgaocar, whose family manages the V M Salgaocar group of companies which runs operates several mining outfits in the state.

Rodricks recently documented fashion history of Goa through a pictorial book ‘Moda Goa’, his tribute to the state. In this book published by HarperCollins India, he says that Goa was the cradle of Indo-Western couture. He felt the need to document Goa’s fashion history through a pictorial presentation when he realised that there was no authentic source on the history of clothes in Goa except some clothes in the Portuguese museum.