AUTUMN & WINTER 2023 COLLECTION NOTE

 

The debate between digital and film has been quietly but definitively decided.  Coexistence has triumphed. The rejection of the modern is pointless and the relinquishing of the traditional only makes us poorer. Attempting to live as a Luddite is isolating and overly nostalgic, but when we never step out of the digital world we lose much of life's richness.

We all have examples of these competing elements in our lives. And the wisest amongst us have learnt to balance them. To make it "and" rather than "versus".  Digital & film, streaming & vinyl, home viewing & cinema, screens & print, scrolling & strolling, machine made & handmade, emails & postcards, capsules & freshly ground,

Hand weaving and hand finishing Madras is a tradition that we are dedicated to promoting by enabling our customers to enjoy its richness and uniqueness.

This season's photography celebrates taking a break from the digital world by walking the streets of Manhattan or browsing through books in a dusty library.  Wearing low tech hand woven Madras while exploring the physical world.

In the colder weather collections our proprietary Winter Madras™ is always at the core. It is a heavy weave 20s count single ply 100% Indian cotton that has been given a soft brushed flannel finish. Winter Madras™ is single weaver hand woven cloth designed in an exclusive range of irregular patterns and checks that are specific to the style of authentic Madras and distinct to anything found in traditional flannel checks or tartans. In addition to the bright yarn shades typical of Madras, our AW23 collection includes a selection of muted colors and new twisted yarns that add a heathered effect to many of the designs.

Autumn & Winter 2023 is our second collection incorporating naturally dyed organic cotton. Our own pure organic Indian cotton yarn naturally dyed with real indigo and pomegranate peels, avoiding the use of any synthetic chemicals. These yarns have then been hand woven into four unique Madras cloth designs for this collection.

In the balance of the range, the spectrum of our proprietary yarn colors together with handloom weave developments have grown. Including heathers, space dyes, reversible twills and two ply oxfords and of course our Chevron Weave.

In styles, as always the collection is built around our classic N°5 button down shirt and its derivatives, particularly in Winter Madras™. But there are a number of new additions including two reversible outerwear pieces. The N°132 round tail reversible over shirt and the N°49 reversible waistcoat. Both are fully reversible and have lightweight cricket pad quilting and deep hand warmer pockets.

Finally, hand weaving single weaver cloths being the identity of our brand, it makes us proud to communicate that we have grown this season to 50 in-house handlooms for our team of 50 weavers from only three looms and a single weaver four and a half years ago.