Has authentic bleeding madras been around?

I thought not and certainly not seen it anywhere, was the link in the story of the fabric producer not posted on here a while back?

The real deal is hand-loomed and has non-AZO dyes!  Read the link, y'all!

Last edited by chatsworth osborne jr. (2015-08-25 20:19:32)

Yeah, real Madras never stops bleeding! Those other shirts don't really bleed, they just kinda fade, but they still look nice to me. If you're after 100% authenticity, after reading the comments, it looks like Mercer and Sons might start using that real bleeding fabric too. Nice!

No. According to our master dyer/weaver who was active in the 1960s, vegetable dyes were not used then; popular belief to the contrary notwithstanding. Non-azo free direct dyes were, which are carcinogenic/environmentally harmful and were outlawed by most countries. This contributed to the eventual disappearance of the fabric from the marketplace. As mentioned: vegetable dyes only "bleed" a limited amount of times, more than the shirts in The Sixties did, despite their limited (6 months) life.

W::ith reference to RL madras

Excerpts from a 2014 Ask Andy thread, “Bleeding Madras”:

+ I decided to test the “guaranteed to bleed” RL items a few weeks ago. I put a NWT RL Rugby shirt in a mixing bowl and filled it withnear-boiling water. I also laid a strip of paper towel halfway in the bowl to test how much dye leeched out. After letting it sit for
about and hour, I pulled the strip out and it dried to solid white.

+ Current claims of bleeding madras are extremely overstated in the items I have. Vintage (at least back in the 80’s) bled out a lot, started a little crisp with saturated colors and ended up wonderfully soft and faded. The lines don’t blend and the colors don’t bleed into each other, just out. We would soak them in salt water overnight to try to lock in the color if you didn’t want the fade. The new stuff I’ve seen has only a passing resemblance to the old stuff.

N.B.Our Loominous “bleeding” madras “bleeds” a lot. The lines and colors “bleed” into each other. RL, BB, the dyes “bleed” out.

In the 1960s, the authentic stuff, the colors blended. J. Pizzuto, Fabric Science, pp. 176. According to an independent, Indian gov't textile lab, the shrinkage is minimal. <1%. The fabric - as part of the dyeing process - is soaked in water for 24 hrs. There's a picture of what it looks like after a wash on Ivy Style.


http://www.ivy-style.com/bled-dry-new-david-wood-bleeding-madras-shirts-sell-out-instantly.html

David Hodgkins/David Wood in Portland, ME, who's old enough to remember the authentic stuff, i.e. was available in The Sixties. He sold out of his - the 1st time the authentic stuff has been available in 45+ years - instantly. No advertising. Ivy Style, supra.

I have a good friend who is indian, his family looked into sourcing it for me whilst I was working with H on the Fizzy project, alas it came to nothing - they knew the history but found that it was impossible to find the fabric for all the reasons listed above.

At one point they thought they had a lead on some rolls in a warehouse but it never seemed to turn up, so in the end I stopped chasing it. Shame as though I didn't tell H at the time, I was getting pretty excited that if it came off he would have some amazing vintage fabric.

So the good quality madras from back in the day e.g. as used in a 60s Brooks shirt - did it last as long as e.g. Oxford or broadcloth?

Not that I'd wear madras beyond the summer months, but according to IS the Mercers might be getting some of the cloth they're referring to, in which case I'd be very tempted, but not if it has a short lifespan.

Hey man, I mean, what else would they be doing?  They're fortunate to just have something to pass the time.

Last edited by Bop (2015-08-27 12:08:27)