While still a child, on vacation at the farm of family friends, little Sergio writes to his grandmother, Stella, asking her to bring him a costume for Carnival. Along with the manuscript, Segio draws a Hindu prince, indicating how he imagines the artifact to be.
Almost 80 years later, on a Sunday, a local newspaper in Frankfurt, Germany, publishes an
article about Sergio Rodrigues’ professional career. The text makes analogies such as: “The Ayrton Senna of Brazilian design, a popstar” and so on and so forth and concludes by saying that “Sergio dressed like a boy whose mother allows him to choose his clothes by himself”.
The countless characters that Sergio Drew, as well as his self-caricatures throughout his 60 years of creation, express humanity with gestures, movements, paraphernalia and clothing. We can say that Sergio had some fascination with fashion, in his very unique Sergio Rodrigues way of being.
Two years ago, we initiated the first contacts between Handred and the Sergio Rodrigues Institute, which led to the creative collaboration projects between both entities, designed by André Namitala. We began, thus, an exciting dive into the sea of documents from the Institute. Dozens of shared stories, countless empty bottles of wine. We managed to recreate, in these meetings, the environment and atmosphere that Sergio cared for so much – being among friends to celebrate life and imagination.
When aiming at Sergio’s architecture and interior design drawings, André transforms our master’s perspectives, finding
new horizon lines and new vanishing points, an analog language of someone who learned descriptive geometry through clipboards with parallel rulers, like Sergio.
From objects conceived by Sergio, what André does is imagine applications that recreate aesthetic standards and transform, in the eyes of the observer, the utility that was idealized by the designer.
Namitala transports to his craft’s supports – linen, silk, organza and cotton – the entire creative universe of Rodrigues. Thus, reconfigured designs are formed with arrangements that create prints and embroideries that are now no longer only Sergio Rodrigues’ or exclusively Handred’s. They are the expression, all at once, of two creative forces bringing to light the reinvigorated legacy of Sergio Rodrigues under the innovative eye of the young and talented stylist.
Fernando Mendes
President of the Sergio Rodrigues Institute
