Looking for a surprise? You won’t get one when Rodricks tells you his finale collection for the upcoming Lakme Fashion Week (in Mumbai from March 29 to April 4) is called Tropical Island.

And while you’re ready to put the phone down on him, he adds, “Since this is a hat-trick for me, my third finale, I’m working hard to make it look new.” And so? Only a bit of his palette or delicate white and nude tones, Rodricks promises mad burst of colour. “There’s bright fuschia mixed with red and yellow, it’s beautiful, energetic, fresh and young,” he says.

We’re almost reminded of Britain’s acclaimed fashion hack, Hillary Alexander, who walked out of Rajesh Pratap Singh’s ingenious Paris Fashion week collection asking, “But where was the colour?” Rodricks assures: “There’s a shift to colour and also to newer textures.” Something that makes Rodricks a master of his craft, especially when you see him create fabric out of dried banana trees. There are lungis inspired by Sri Lankan batik and severe couture elements in the accessorising too, Rodricks adds.

A finale isn’t like any ordinary show. Not only is it a pat on the back of one lucky designer, it also demands grandeur of him unseen during the past week. A sun-and-surf routine is hard to please when the audience wants bling, glitter and Bollywood celebrities.

But Rodricks’s finale shows have caused jaws to drop, flesh to freeze and hearts to skip several beats. Rodricks was the finale designer of the first fashion week, in 2000, along with Tarun Tahiliani and Raghavendra Rathore, and then again in 2003 with Hemant Trevedi. Without the accoutrements of embellishment and often colour, the design guru has created pure and unimagined beauty from a simple yarn. His Water collection of 2003 had a model in a full flounce skirt, with a top that was actually a mini aquarium with real fish.

“Honestly, I can stand outside a Chanel window and say that this is one of my inventions,” says the man who brought out the first cut-up sarong, the spiral seam and the contemporary sari drape.

But foreign shores are hardly where he’s headed to—Rodricks is one designer who wants to stay put in

India. “All the big fashion houses want to come here; all the money to be made is here,” he states. “Milan is full of these Indian buyers trying to bring

Armani or Versace into India. Why can’t they put their money in Indian designers instead?”

At 47, Rodricks has two decades in fashion behind him. “I feel that I’m too old to go global now. I don’t want to make a machine of myself, I’ll leave that to the future generation,” he says.