Madras (cloth)

{{Short description|Fine handwoven cotton fabric of India}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}} {{Use Indian English|date=January 2019}}thumb|right|Samples of cloth showing many typical Madras patterns

'''Madras''' is a lightweight cotton fabric with typically patterned texture and tartan design, used primarily for summer clothing such as pants, shorts, lungi, dresses, and jackets. The fabric takes its name from the former name of the city of Chennai in India.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Anette |last1=Lynch |first2=Strauss |last2=Mitchell D. |title=Ethnic Dress in the United States: A Cultural Encyclopedia |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |date=2014 |isbn=9780759121508 |page=189}}</ref>

==Definition== Authentic Madras comes from Chennai (Madras) in Tamil Nadu. Both sides of the cloth must bear the same pattern, and it must be handwoven (evidenced by the small flaws in the fabric).<ref name="Checkered Past">{{cite web |last=German |first=Deb |title=Checkered Past: A Brief History of the Madras Plaid Shirt |url= http://www.orvis.com/news/products-we-love/checkered-past-a-brief-history-of-the-madras-plaid-shirt/ |work=Orvis News |date=9 June 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201203180422/https://news.orvis.com/products-we-love/checkered-past-a-brief-history-of-the-madras-plaid-shirt |archive-date=3 December 2020 |access-date=2 August 2022}}</ref> Madras was most popular in the 1960s.

Cotton madras is woven from a fragile, short-staple cotton fiber that cannot be combed, only carded.<ref name="Checkered Past" /> This results in bumps known as slubs which are thick spots in the yarn that give madras its unique texture. The cotton is hand-dyed after being spun into yarn, woven, and finished in some 200 small villages in the Madras area.<ref name="Checkered Past" />

==History== By the 16th century, madras cotton had morphed into something more elegant, printed with floral patterns or religious designs.<ref name="Checkered Past" />

Dutch traders arrived in India in the early 17th century to trade in the local calico cloth, followed by the British. The English East India Company sought quality textiles, finding the small fishing village of Madrasapattinam (Madras), and the company established a trading post there in the mid-17th century.<ref name="Checkered Past" />

The first madras material<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvsfg |title=Cotton: A Yarn with a Twist |department=The Forum |date=19 December 2017 |work=BBC News |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20221225093957/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvsfg |archive-date=25 December 2022 |access-date=2 August 2022}}</ref> was a muslin overprinted or embroidered in elaborate patterns with vegetable dyes.<ref name="Checkered Past" /> To secure a reliable labor supply, the English East India Company promised a 30-year exemption from duties for Indian weavers in the area, and thus within a year nearly 400 families of weavers had settled in Madras.<ref>{{cite web |last=Schneider |first=Sven Raphael |title=Madras Guide – How the Shirt, Pants & Jackets Became Popular |url= https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/madras-guide-shirts-pants-history-where-to-buy |work=Gentlemans Gazette |date=21 June 2019 |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220703003734/https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/madras-guide-shirts-pants-history-where-to-buy/ |archive-date=3 July 2022 |access-date=2 August 2022}}</ref>

Undyed madras cloth became popular in Europe because it was lightweight and breathable.<ref name="Checkered Past" /> Cotton plaid madras reached America in 1718 as a donation to the Collegiate School of Connecticut (now known as Yale University).<ref name="Checkered Past" /> Sears offered the first madras shirt for sale to the American consumer in its 1897 catalog.<ref name="Checkered Past" />

In the Philippines, madras fabric was known as '''cambaya''', after the state of Cambay (present-day Gujarat, India) that also exported madras fabrics. They were popular in the early 19th century for use in traditional women's skirts (''saya'') in the baro't saya ensemble, as well as for pants for the barong tagalog. Since they were expensive, they were copied by Chinese manufacturers as well as local industries, resulting in a lower-grade fabric that was usually used for clothing by commoners.<ref>{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Coo |first=Stéphanie Marie R. |date=3 October 2014 |url= https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01126974/document |title=Clothing and the colonial culture of appearances in nineteenth century Spanish Philippines (1820-1896) |publisher=Université Nice Sophia Antipolis |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20221026163046/https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01126974/document |archive-date=26 October 2022 |access-date=2 August 2022}}</ref> The name "madras" was attributed to shirt maker David J. Anderson in 1844,<ref name="Checkered Past" /> although the material had been referred to as such much earlier. In 1958 William Jacobson, a leading textile importer, traveled to Bombay to trade with Captain C.P. Krishnan, an exporter of madras from Chennai (formerly Madras). The two men struck a dollar-a-yard deal for madras material possessing a "strong smell of vegetable dyes and sesame oils," woven of bright colors and originally bound for South Africa.<ref name="Checkered Past" /> Krishnan warned Jacobson that the fabric should be washed gently in cold water to avoid bleeding, advice that never reached the Brooks Brothers buyers to whom Jacobson sold 10,000 yards for the manufacture of madras clothing.<ref name="Checkered Past" /> Brooks Brothers then sold cotton madras garments to consumers without proper washing instructions, resulting in the bright madras dyes bleeding in the wash and the garments emerged discolored and faded. To counter dissatisfied customers, Madison Avenue advertising giant David Ogilvy coined the phrase "guaranteed to bleed" and used this as a selling point rather than a defect.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Colman |first=David |date=2004-07-18 |title=What Hipsters Found in Preppy Closets |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/style/what-hipsters-found-in-preppy-closets.html |access-date=2024-08-31 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> A 1966 advertisement in John Plain stated: <blockquote>Authentic Indian Madras is completely handwoven from yarns dyed with native vegetable colorings. Home-spun by native weavers, no two plaids are exactly the same. When washed with mild soap in warm water, they are guaranteed to bleed and blend together into distinctively muted and subdued colorings.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=1966 |title=Bleeding Madras |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/5522949106/in/album-72157626121527665/ |access-date=2024-08-31 |magazine=John Plain Spring and Summer Supplement |publisher=John Plain & Company |page=17 |publication-place=Chicago}}</ref></blockquote>

In the United States, the plaid cotton madras shirt became popular in the 1960s among the post-World War II generation of preppy baby boomers.<ref name="Checkered Past" />

As early as the 1930s, cotton madras clothing was emerging as a status symbol in the US because only American tourists who could afford expensive Caribbean vacations during the Great Depression had access and thus the madras shirt was a signal of affluence.<ref name="Checkered Past" />

Madras today is available as plaid patterns in regular cotton, seersucker, and as patchwork madras, meaning cutting several madras fabrics into squares or rectangles and sewing them back together to form a mixed pattern of various plaids.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

== National costumes == In 1994 the government of Antigua and Barbuda adopted a new national dress, which featured madras cloth, that had been designed by artist Heather Doram, as a result of a national competition.<ref name=":3">{{cite book |last=Kras |first=Sara Louise |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=TnItHSAgevMC&dq=heather+doram&pg=PA79 |title=Antigua and Barbuda |date=2008 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish |isbn=9780761425700 |page=79 |via=Google Books |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230223011212/https://books.google.com/books?id=TnItHSAgevMC&dq=heather+doram&pg=PA79 |archive-date=23 February 2023 |access-date=2 August 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Gall |first=Timothy L. |last2=Hobby |first2=Jeneen |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=F7hZAAAAYAAJ&q=heather+doram |title=Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life |date=2009 |publisher=Gale |isbn=9781414448909 |page=57 |via=Google Books |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230223011248/https://books.google.com/books?id=F7hZAAAAYAAJ&q=heather+doram |archive-date=23 February 2023 |access-date=2 August 2022}}</ref>

== Gallery == {{Gallery|File:Paul Gauguin, Jeune martiniquaise au madras, 1887.jpg|A young Martinican woman in Madras. By Paul Gauguin, 1887.|File:Martinique Costumes.JPG|Martinican carnival costumes using madras fabrics.|File:Marché central(épices).jpg|Madras bags of spices in a Saint-Antoine market in Guadeloupe.|title=|align=center}}

==References== '''Notes''' {{Reflist}}

'''Further reading''' *[https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/05/style/india-madras-fabric-us-fashion-intl-hnk/index.html How a humble Indian fabric became a symbol of luxury in 1960s America], CNN (2024) *[https://connectingthreads.co.uk ''Connecting Threads: Fashioning Madras in the Caribbean''] A project exploring the history of Madras textiles in India and the Caribbean

Category:Woven fabrics Category:Textile industry in Tamil Nadu Category:Economy of Chennai Category:Fashion aesthetics Category:Upper class culture in the United States