Madras (cloth)
Madras checks is a colorful cotton fabric with a plaid pattern, originating in Chennai, India. It is yarn-dyed before weaving, lightweight and breathable, and mainly used for shirts and summer clothing.
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.
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). Madras was most popular in the 1960s.
Cotton madras is woven from a fragile, short-staple cotton fiber that cannot be combed, only carded. 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.
History
By the 16th century, madras cotton had morphed into something more elegant, printed with floral patterns or religious designs.
Dutch traders arrived in India in the early 17th century to trade in the local calico cloth, followed by the British.
The public source identifies “Madras (cloth)” as madras checks is a colorful cotton fabric with a plaid pattern, originating in Chennai, India. It is yarn-dyed before weaving, lightweight and breathable, and mainly used for shirts and summer clothing. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Madras, cloth and checks.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137102034. Authority coordinates are 13.084, 80.270. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Madras (cloth)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.