Madras (cloth)
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Madras is a lightweight cotton fabric with typically patterned texture and plaid design, used primarily for summer clothing—pants, shorts, dresses and jackets. The fabric takes its name from the former English name of the city of Chennai, India. This cloth also was identified by the colloquial name, "Madrasi checks."
One style popular during the 1960s was called bleeding Madras. It used dyes that were not colorfast in a typically plaid design, resulting in bleeding and fading colors that yielded a new look to the fabric each time it was laundered. C. P. Krishnan Nair was one of the pioneers of the Bleeding Madras fabric.[1]
As a fabric, it is notable because the front and back of the fabric are indistinguishable.
In popular culture
The fabric is mentioned many times in the S.E. Hinton book The Outsiders as a favored pattern of shirts and jackets worn by the Socs. The book is set in the early 1960s, a period when Madras was particularly fashionable amongst preps.[2] It is also mentioned several times in the song "M79" by the American band Vampire Weekend.
See also
References
- ^ Sanghvi, Vir (February 12, 2011). "Hotel Leela's Captain Courageous". Hindustan Times New Delhi.
- ^ http://www.1960sclothing.co.uk/the-1960s/1960s-america/
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