Madras (cloth)

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 two men struck a dollar-a-yard deal for madras material possessing a "strong smell of vegetable dyes and sesame oils," woven of bright colors and originally bound for South Africa.

To counter dissatisfied customers, Madison Avenue advertising giant David Ogilvy coined the phrase "guaranteed to bleed" and used this as a selling point rather than a defect.

[6] A 1966 advertisement in John Plain stated: Authentic Indian Madras is completely handwoven from yarns dyed with native vegetable colorings.

When washed with mild soap in warm water, they are guaranteed to bleed and blend together into distinctively muted and subdued colorings.

[7]In the United States, the plaid cotton madras shirt became popular in the 1960s among the post-World War II generation of preppy baby boomers.