Guaranteed to bleed: the checked cloth from a fishing village

By Isla Quinn

Red into blue into green. Wash it and the colours run into each other. That was the point, by the end.

Start in the village

The BBC traces Madras check to the fishing village of Madrasapattinam, later Madras and now Chennai. Local fishermen and farmers, it says, wore a hand-woven muslin in a rainbow of checks as lungis, suited to the heat and damp. The cloth showed the same pattern on both sides, used vegetable dyes that bled when washed, and had a bumpy texture. Wikipedia agrees on the pattern, saying both sides must match and the cloth must be handwoven, which leaves small flaws. Short-staple cotton that can be carded but not combed gives it slubs, thick spots that give the fabric its texture.

Many names

The BBC quotes a textile researcher who lists the names: Madras checks, real Madras handkerchief, George cloth (after Fort St George in Madras), Guinea cloth, bleeding Madras. A trader quoted by the BBC gives what he calls the true definition: a pure cotton, yarn-dyed plain-weave cloth with a minimum two-colour irregular pattern, woven in Madras with pure Indian cotton. That is one person’s definition, not a rule.

How it travelled

Wikipedia puts Dutch traders in India in the early 17th century and an English East India Company post at Madrasapattinam in the mid-17th. The BBC says the Dutch reached the village in 1612. Both say the company offered a 30-year exemption from duties, and both say about 400 weaver families, or weavers, settled in Madras in response. The BBC cites an art historian’s book that dates the first export of checked fabric under the name Madras to 1660, as the “Real Madras Handkerchief”, in 8 m bales that could be cut into three square kerchiefs to evade a tax.

The cloth went west. The BBC says it reached Nigeria, where the handkerchief cloth became known as Injiri, meaning “real India”, and was a ceremonial gift for newborns among the Kalabari. It says brides in Ghana and the Ivory Coast wore dresses made from it in the 18th and 19th centuries. It says madras reached the Caribbean in the first half of the 19th century, thought to be with indentured servants from Madras. Wikipedia notes that Antigua and Barbuda adopted a national dress featuring madras in 1994. The BBC says the cloth reached America in the form of bales given to the college that became Yale. Wikipedia gives 1718 and describes it as cotton plaid donated to the Collegiate School of Connecticut.

Shirts and a mistake

Wikipedia says shirtmaker David J. Anderson is credited with naming the material madras in 1844, and that Sears offered the first madras shirt in its catalogue in 1897. The BBC also gives 1897 for the Sears catalogue. In 1958, both say, an exporter bought cloth from a Madras supplier and sold it to Brooks Brothers. The shop sold garments without washing instructions, and the bright dyes ran. Wikipedia says Captain C. P. Krishnan had warned that it should be washed gently in cold water. The advertising man David Ogilvy then, according to Wikipedia, promoted the cloth as “guaranteed to bleed”. The BBC calls it a clever pivot.

What changed

The BBC says the switch from handlooms to power looms in the 1980s and colour-fast technology contributed to the slow disappearance of the original bleeding cloth. It adds that Madras checks lack a denomination of origin or geographical indication, so there was nothing to stop machine-made imitation plaids being sold as madras. Wikipedia says the cloth is hand-dyed after spinning, weaving and finishing in about 200 small villages in the Madras area. Wikipedia does not date that statement, and the BBC’s account suggests the picture changed, so we cannot say how many hand-dyeing villages remain. Our reading: the word on a label tells you the pattern, not the loom.

Dates in order

1612: Dutch reach Madrasapattinam, according to the BBC.
Mid-17th century: English East India Company post; duty exemption offered, according to Wikipedia and the BBC.
1660: first export under the name Madras, according to an art historian cited by the BBC.
1718: plaid madras reaches the Collegiate School of Connecticut, according to Wikipedia.
1844: the name madras credited to a shirtmaker, according to Wikipedia.
1897: Sears catalogue, according to both.
1958: the Brooks Brothers sale and the bleeding complaints.
1994: Antigua and Barbuda national dress, according to Wikipedia.

Questions a buyer would ask

Is it handwoven or mill-made? Is the pattern the same on both sides? Is the cotton yarn-dyed? Wash it alone, cold, the first time. Our reading: in the warm months of the southern year, a lightweight cotton with a long story makes a good gift, and the story is worth asking the seller to tell.

What we left out

Prices, exact yardages and the cloth’s 1958 deal terms. We also left out the BBC’s account of earlier trade routes and its second-hand claims about merchants, and the regional names in Wikipedia.

Quick answers

Where does Madras check come from? The BBC traces it to the fishing village of Madrasapattinam, now Chennai in Tamil Nadu, where hand-woven checked lungis were worn. Wikipedia says the cloth takes its name from Madras.

Why is it called bleeding madras? According to the BBC, the vegetable dyes ran when washed. Wikipedia says that after 1958 Brooks Brothers sold it without washing instructions and it was promoted as “guaranteed to bleed”.

Is Madras check protected by a GI? According to the BBC, no. It says Madras checks lack a denomination of origin or geographical indication.

Roam first. Shop later.

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