On the previous podcast, we enjoyed the conversation with Ujjawal Dubey from Antar-Agni. You can listen to that podcast here. He told us how it was the experience to prepare and win the Regionals of the prestigious Woolmark Prize in menswear and many other fashion awards. Today, we have with us the winner of the womenswear prize: Ruchika Sachdeva from Bodice.

She is going to share with us her journey, what is Bodice about and how she lived the process so far. Listen to it here. Hit play!

RUCHIKA SACHDEVA: REGIONAL WINNER OF THE WOOLMARK PRIZE IN WOMENSWEAR

ABOUT RUCHIKA

This is how the journey of Ruchika started. Ruchika Sachdeva is originally from New Delhi in India. She later went to live and study in London at the London College of Fashion. There, she found that people dressed very freely and that there were endless possibilities to express yourself through your clothes and your style.

Soon, she became proficient in “speaking the language of clothes”. After studying, she came back to India and started developing what is today her brand: Bodice.

ABOUT BODICE

Bodice is the most elementary building block when pattern making. Mostly you can drape around the body or you can make patterns. She uses pattern making and because she believes in the beauty of simple things, she called her brand Bodice.

This brand is pretty special. She started it in 2011 with the help of a tailor, with not much money but a clear philosophy about what she wanted to create.

Ruchika wants to be different to what is out there. Her clothes and designs are full of meaning. She enjoys contrast and contradiction, opposites, and parallels. For example, she mixes artfully the old traditional Indian techniques with contemporary designs. Tradition that everybody can wear on a daily basis, and feels modern and fresh.

Bodice has received many fashion awards and prizes already. From Elle, Grazia, to Forbes, where she was even on the cover.

She loves what she does, and you can tell. In a way, she is on a mission to get her clients to feel happy and empowered, to boost their self-confidence.

ABOUT THE WOOLMARK PRIZE

Ruchika Sachdeva had 3 months to prepare for the competition. All candidates had to submit quite a lot of papers about themselves and their brands and of course needed to create something within the requirements of the Woolmark Prize. The major requirement was that you have to use minimum 80% merino wool.

BODICE PROPOSAL FOR THE WOOLMARK PRIZE

Wool is versatile and ductile. Ruchika´s proposal included a jacket with 2 layers of handwoven wool fabric and to sew them together she used a very antique technique. This technique is used by grandmothers in India when babies are born. They will use their sarees to do bed linen for the newborn and stitch the layers together. The jacket looked great and totally modern. I wouldn’t have thought that so much tradition and meaning would be on it.

But the jacket had more surprises in store. Inside the jacket, there is another piece- kind of like a scarf but sewn to the sides. That inner fabric was handwoven again, but this time with stripes. Each line is different in size and in the space in between is also different. She didn’t want a “perfect looking print” motif. She enjoys difference and freedom. So, the stripe pattern came out of instinct instead of measurement.

The dress uses color blocks and pleats using a technique that will save you to iron pleat by pleat in the future.

Ruchika will start preparing the rest of the looks required for the finals that will take place in Florence in 6 months. She deserves to keep on winning fashion awards and recognition for all the thought and effort to make things different.

If you want to get in touch with her or learn more about her brand, check her website, her Instagram, and her Facebook. At the end of the year, the e-commerce will be launching so stay tuned!

Don’t