Bleed and blend

When I was a kid, we were doing some sort of school project about Clothes From Other Lands, and my father's uncle up in Philadelphia, a shirtmaker by trade, sent me a box of fabrics From Other Lands.


And in that box, among the denims (French fabric named for the city of Nîmes where it was produced, called “sergé de Nîmes”), cottons, and corduroys, I found a swatch of madras, from India.

Greatuncle Charles explained in a note that Madras was named for the city in India from whence it came. That city is now known as Chennai.

But the fascinating thing about madras back then was that it was a sort of rough, but lightweight, cotton material, and it was dyed with vegetable dye and sesame oil.

And here's the irony  - it was regarded in India as the clothing of the lower classes, people who couldn't afford the finer clothiers. It was regarded as work wear for the working class.  But in America, preppy guys 'n' gals who had been to Bermuda came home with pants and shorts and shirts and sports jackets and I don't know what-all else, and madras was huge here in the early 60s. People were mad about plaid. It all went well with the advent of what we call "go to hell pants" - loud plaids, madras, and vibrant reds - crimson, rusty, scarlet, vermilion,  greens - teal, pine, mint, and yellows  - canary, goldenrod, lemon chiffon - sometimes with tiny nautical symbols, or crabs, or lacrosse sticks - and we wear them proudly, and those who don't care for them can just go to h-e-double toothpicks.

And here's another angle on the madras story. Brooks Brothers was among the first to sell the clothing here, but for reasons best known to the Brooks Brothers, their early customers were not told about the "bleeding" part of bleeding madras.  Back in those days, those inexpensive dyes would run and fade all other the place when washed in hot water. Brooks Bros were supposed to tell people to use cold water only, but they didn't, and they faced a lot of angry customers...

until a wise ad man named David Ogilvy entered the picture. He was smart enough to know that, rather than deal with complaints about all the blurry runny shirts, it would be better to tell customers that that was what was SUPPOSED to happen with madras. He made "guaranteed to bleed" a household expression, at least in the laundry room. And that turned a defect into an advantage!

He wrote this for the catalog:

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.

So just like a comfortable a pair of khakis or that old "US Olympic Bongo Team" sweatshirt from the beach in the early 60s, madras gets to be soft and faded and eternally comfy.

Or, it used to. They use colorfast dyes now.  But still.