Handloom Cotton by the Metre

Details

Plain-weave handloom cotton woven in Kannur, Kerala, at 140 GSM in 40s two-ply, 60 ends by 56 picks to the inch, with a true woven selvedge on both edges. It comes off the loom at 44 in usable width, and that number decides how much you have to buy. A hand loom is 42 to 44 in across where a mill runs 58 to 60, so a full-sleeve shirt takes 2.5 m of this against 1.6 m of mill cloth. Order by the mill figure and you are left holding cloth you cannot finish the garment with. Two frauds sit on this shelf. The first is powerloom cloth sold as handloom, which is one of the largest frauds in Indian textiles and the reason the Government of India created the Handloom Mark, administered by the Textiles Committee. Every piece here carries it. The second is size. A shopper judges cloth by squeezing a fold between finger and thumb at the counter, and starch and china clay will make a 110 GSM cloth feel like a 150 GSM one for exactly as long as it takes to get it home. The first wash takes the size out, the cloth loses a fifth of its body, and a garment cut to a stiff fabric hangs like a rag.

• Handloom Mark on every piece, no powerloom cloth on this listing
• 100 percent cotton by microscopy, no polyester blended in
• 140 GSM measured rather than estimated, and 44 in usable width declared honestly
• Residual size under 1 percent after desizing, no starch and no china clay loaded in to fake the hand
• Yarn-dyed azo-free, below 30 mg per kg on the 24 restricted aromatic amines
• Loom-state: not mercerised, not bleached, no resin finish
• Pre-wash and dry the full length before you cut, because it relaxes about 3 percent and it is better to lose that before the scissors than after. It also carries slubs and a slightly uneven pick, because a person threw the shuttle.