Bright checks, lightweight cotton and seemingly endless combinations of colour, Madras fabric is instantly recognisable, but there is much more to this Indian textile than a colourful checked pattern.
The name Madras is the former name of Chennai, on the southeast coast of India. The city and surrounding region became closely associated with the production and international trade of lightweight checked cotton cloth, and over time the word Madras came to describe this distinctive style of fabric.
Today you will see the term used for everything from traditional woven Indian cotton to mass-produced fabric printed with a checked design. So, if you are buying Madras for sewing, it helps to know what you are actually looking at.
What is traditional Madras fabric?
Traditional Madras is generally a lightweight cotton fabric woven from coloured yarns to create its checks, stripes and plaids. Rather than printing a checked pattern onto the surface of finished cloth, the yarn itself is dyed before weaving. Different coloured threads are then arranged in the warp and weft, creating the pattern as the fabric is woven.
This is known as yarn-dyed fabric. It is one of the easiest ways to distinguish a traditionally woven check from a printed imitation.
Turn a yarn-dyed Madras fabric over and you will see essentially the same pattern and colours on the reverse. With a printed check, the design is applied to the surface after weaving, so the back of the fabric will usually look noticeably different.
For sewists, this is also rather handy, there isn’t really a wrong side based on the print!
What does Kattam mean?
You may also come across the word Kattam when looking at checked fabrics from Tamil Nadu. Kattam is a Tamil word associated with squares, boxes or checks and is commonly used when describing checked textiles. These checks can be tiny and regular, large and bold, or made from overlapping stripes in several colours.
So while Madras is the name most familiar internationally, Kattam connects these checked fabrics to the language and textile traditions of Tamil Nadu.
And not every Kattam looks like the colourful Madras shirt you may have in mind. Some are simple two-colour checks, while others combine numerous coloured yarns to produce surprisingly complex patterns.
Yarn-dyed checks versus printed checks
From a distance, the two can look quite similar. Look closer and the difference becomes clearer.
- In a printed check, plain fabric is woven first and the pattern is subsequently printed onto its surface.
- In a yarn-dyed check, the individual threads are dyed first. The pattern only appears when those threads cross one another on the loom.
That intersection is part of what makes woven checks so interesting. Where differently coloured warp and weft threads cross, your eye perceives another shade, allowing a relatively small number of yarn colours to create a much richer-looking pattern. It also means the design is physically part of the cloth rather than sitting on top of it.
And what does handloom mean?
Handloom fabric is woven on a loom operated by a person rather than produced entirely by an automated industrial weaving process.
This human element means the finished cloth can have small irregularities. You may notice subtle changes in the weave, tiny variations in the checks or slight differences in colour and tension across the fabric.
These aren’t necessarily faults. They are part of the character of a textile that hasn’t been engineered to look perfectly identical metre after metre.
For anyone accustomed to commercially produced fabric, handwoven cloth can initially look a little different. But that variation is also part of its appeal: no two lengths are ever completely identical.
Madras, Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Madras was officially renamed Chennai in 1996, but the old name lives on internationally through Madras cloth. The textile history of this part of southern India stretches back centuries. Cotton growing, spinning, dyeing and weaving developed into important industries, while India’s southeast coast became a major centre for textile trade.
Indian cotton cloth travelled widely through trade networks, reaching Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and eventually the Americas. As a result, Madras developed a life far beyond the place that gave it its name.
In Western fashion it became particularly associated with colourful summer shirts, shorts and preppy clothing. But reducing Madras to a fashion trend overlooks the much longer Indian textile tradition behind the cloth. This summer in India, Madras cotton has made a massive comeback with many designers featuring this fabric in their collections. It is in hot demand so we are lucky to have got some for you!
Does real Madras have to bleed or fade?
You may have heard stories about “bleeding Madras”. This refers to fabric deliberately made with dyes that ran and changed with repeated washing. This became a particularly famous form of Madras in twentieth-century Western fashion, where the gradual fading and blending of the colours was part of its appeal.
Not every authentic or traditionally made Madras fabric needs to bleed dramatically when washed. Dyes, production methods and colourfastness vary enormously. A fabric does not need to lose its colour in the wash to qualify as Madras. In fact, if you have fallen in love with a particular combination of colours, that may be rather good news.
Why sew with Madras cotton?
Madras is a wonderful fabric for warm-weather sewing so it is perfect for the Australian climate. Its lightweight cotton construction makes it breathable and comfortable, particularly in hot and humid weather. Depending on the weight and weave, it can work beautifully for:
- shirts and blouses
- summer dresses and sundresses
- skirts
- lightweight trousers and shorts
- children’s clothing
- pyjamas and robes
- scarves
- patchwork and quilting
- bags, accessories and home sewing projects
The checks also give you plenty of opportunity to play. You can carefully pattern-match them across seams and pockets, or deliberately turn pieces in different directions, cut pockets on the bias and mix coordinating checks. There are no sewing police at bhumi & pari!
Are irregularities normal?
With handwoven fabric, yes. A small variation in a stripe, a slightly uneven thread, or a subtle shift in the weave is part of the nature of handmade cloth. You can see the irregularities in this picture of our Ember Madras Kattam fabric. We think that is something worth celebrating rather than hiding.
Mass production has trained us to expect every centimetre of fabric to look exactly like the next. Handwoven textiles remind us that fabric can carry evidence of the person and process involved in making it. That individuality is one of the reasons we love sourcing Indian textiles.
How can you tell if a Madras check is woven?
There is one wonderfully simple test: Turn it over.
If the check has been created using coloured warp and weft threads, you should be able to see the pattern on both sides of the fabric. Look closely and you can often see the individual coloured threads crossing one another. If the reverse is substantially paler or the design largely disappears, you are probably looking at a printed checked pattern rather than a yarn-dyed woven check.
Neither method automatically makes a fabric good or bad. Printed cottons can be beautiful too, but they are fundamentally different ways of creating a design.
When you are buying Madras, it is worth knowing which one you are getting.
Our Madras fabrics
The Madras fabrics at bhumi & pari have been selected because we love their colour, texture and connection to India’s textile traditions. Our current collection includes four different checked colourways, each with its own personality. Because the fabrics are handwoven, you can expect small variations across the length, part of what makes every piece unique.
Whether you turn yours into a breezy shirt, a summer dress, a pair of fabulous checked trousers or something we haven’t thought of yet, we’d love to see what you make.
Explore our Madras fabric collection below and if you’re sewing with one of our fabrics, tag bhumi & pari in your finished make. Seeing what our customers turn these textiles into is one of our favourite parts of selling fabric.
