Khaddar is for the cool guys
On Styleforum, in SoHo studios, and in Brooklyn galleries, India’s handspun fabric is gaining cult status amongst menswear nerds for its texture and design potential.
Welcome back! This is the second of a three part reported series on khadi, a handlooming textile tradition from the Indian subcontinent. This piece (and future journalistic works) is available for free. Paid subscribers, however, fund my ability to report, document, and pay contributors for features (in addition to access to paywalled newsletters, guides, and updates).
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Note: you don’t have to read part 1 (“The many contradictions of the khadi suit”) to understand part 2, but it will give better context to the political history of handlooming. This piece is focused on how it’s reaching a certain American market. Subscribe below to make sure you get part 3 in your inbox when it arrives.
Khaki, cummerbund, seersucker, madras, bandana, cashmere, pajamas.
The vocabulary of Western dress is littered with loanwords and fabrics from the Indian subcontinent. In the case of madras and seersucker, the Polo Ralph Laurens and Brooks Brothers that popularized them for preps educated their customers on the history of the fabrics, even as they reshaped the connotation, social use, and related industry of the textile.
On the streets, on the grid, and on online forums, the same might be happening with khadi, the handloomed fabric with anti-colonial history.
From the stories passed down to me by my Pakistani family, khadi (also called khaddar) in that country had connotations of being a cotton fabric that’s rough, handmade, and indigenously Asian. While I knew that modern women’s designers in India and Pakistan had taken handloomed clothing to incredible creative heights, I still imagined starchy kurtas, beige shawls, and billowy shalwars for men’s clothing. Even if khadi had been updated in the Indian subcontinent, I did not have easy access to it until the last few years, when American designers began working with Indian weavers.
Like its American cousin denim, khaddar has historically been used by politicians and activists alike to project working-class bonafides and hardy self-sufficiency. And just like American denim met Japanese craft in the raw selvedge movement, the American khadi movement is allowing both sides to dig deeper into a wide variety of indigenous hand-crafts and creative design space.
This summer, I walked three blocks through Manhattan and visited nearly half a dozen men’s clothing stores offering khadi fabrics or Indian handcrafts, including 3Sixteen, 18 East, and Kartik Research. My stated reason was to see if any of them had made a Western, tailored suit of khadi, like I had seen from The Post-Romantic Company (in short, not really), but I saw how a burgeoning movement has taken khadi beyond its anti-colonial connotations into an intriguing space known only to a small niche.
Other brands that utilize handlooming include 11:11, Story mfg, Kardo and more.
“I wouldn’t call (khadi) a trendy fabric, but there’s more awareness of it and there’s more use of it today than there was 20 years ago,” said Derek “@dieworkwear” Guy, the internet’s most well-known writer on men’s fashion. In his view (as well as mine and many others I spoke to), 18 East was the brand that had introduced many “menswear guys” to khadi. The fabric is spun by hand into yarns, loomed by hand into fabric, and then often stitched by hand as well. It’s a breathable, textural and deeply human fabric.
“I think it’s a beautiful tradition the way Harris tweed is a beautiful tradition,” said Guy of khadi’s expansion to new audiences. “The story is beautiful and the money should go to the people who have a connection to that story. That to me is the important part; that you’re then creating jobs for (those) people...”
Die, Workwear! had been the blog that introduce me to Post-Romantic Co.’s work, but even said he was unaware that khadi was made in Pakistan as well as India. As with any new product, educating customers is key. Most Asian countries are associated with outsourcing, cost-cutting, and low quality in the fashion industry, but Guy and many of the makers in this space push back on that notion.
“For a long time, India was not considered a place of particularly quality tailoring,” said Guy. He told me an anecdote about how some top British tailors were able to travel to India and work with tailors there to make suits that were up to snuff with what had been perfected in London. This echoed what I learned talking to Post-Romantic Co.; the tailors in Pakistan have decades of skill and inherited knowledge, but need training to make clothes suitable for a Western audience.
“Make no mistake, they’re doing it because London wages are too high, but it is possible to make high quality clothes in this region,” said Guy.
A decade ago, that neighborhood between SoHo and Chinatown was full of stores touting U.S. or European-made heritage clothing. Some of them remain, but after the pandemic, the clothing industry found itself in a completely destabilized supply chain and Asian factories stepped in to bridge the gap. Broadly speaking, after 2020, many more Indian and American partnerships emerged to produce menswear.
Some, like 3Sixteen, began integrating Indian work into their lines. Founded in 2004 by Andrew Chen and Johan Lam, the brand has, in my view, been long associated with American manufacturing and Japanese denim. But then I saw their Loop Collar shirt deeply on sale and learned it was made in India. I picked it up - it evoked block printing without feeling like a costume.
On their blog, describing the process of making a different block-printed shirt, they credit the “immense skill” of the artisans.
“When conceptualizing this shirt, we weren’t even sure if our factory would be willing to attempt a process this labor-intensive - but like so many previous occasions for us, they stepped up to the plate and exceeded every expectation. We are incredibly proud of this shirt as it incorporates both our artistic influences, which shine through in many of the garments we produce, along with our newfound potential for handmade artisanship through our partner factory in India. Our relationship with this factory has been pivotal to our growth these past few years, as it has allowed us to embark on ideas that weren’t possible with our production capacities at the time. From meticulous block printing, to hand screening, to intricate dyeing techniques and hand-loomed textiles, this partnership has opened up a new realm of production techniques which has in turn broadened our horizons.
From 3Sixteen’s blog on the Studio Floral Vacation Shirt
Indian factories do provide companies with lower costs, but it has become clear that it also provides new opportunities. Specifically, it’s introducing American customers to hand-made pieces at a competitive price. Including myself.
Sitting on the couch at the brand’s design studio in Chinatown, Antonio Ciongoli, founder and director of 18 East was telling me about his first trip to see Indian textile work with Stòffa designer, Agyesh Madan.
“I was just kind of shocked by what was possible to do by hand,” said Ciongoli. Online and in person, Ciongoli has strong opinions on fashion and his work, but still shares much of the credit with the Indian partners who have helped make 18 East a success since he launched it in 2018. Previously, Ciongoli headed up Eidos, a sub-brand of Isaia, and was focused on Neopolitan tailoring style.
“I’m not interested in fighting with Italians anymore,” he said, laughing. As many of the Indian factories are just beginning to engage with the Western market, they are, according to Ciongoli, more rapidly able to adapt to new ideas than the Italians he once worked with. For the Indian makers, there’s no sacrilege in experimenting with Gandhi’s fabric and selling it for a premium.
“When we started working with our primary manufacturer in Jaipur, they had only really made kurtas and woven shirts and lightweight dresses,” Ciongoli said. It wasn’t a question of their capability or openness, but of their access. Even though the brand always champions khadi, 18 East introduced items that aren’t handloomed, made in the same factory. “Now they’re making 3L shells, Goretex… The technical outerwear that we’re making is in the same facility.”
“We’re holding hands both ways and everybody’s making an effort.”
Ciongoli is a fabric junkie, so we walk through all the possibilities of khadi as a fabric. Essentially, he tells me, anything cotton can do, khadi can do.
“Ripstop can be khadi,” he said, referring to the tough, hatched fabric often made of nylon. So can corduroy, denim twills, and more complex patterns like the one seen below; the brand has a collection of “knitwear” that feature no knitting at all. They’re loomed by homeweavers who specialize in khaddar blankets; as sweaters, they give the effect of an Aran sweater.
Without having direct access to a loom or weaver, this didn’t make sense to me, no matter how many times Ciongoli or Moeen Lashari of Post-Romantic Co. explained it to me. I started thinking of it like a floppy disk you’d insert into the loom that would load a program that allowed the person to simply run the loom by hand and foot and produce a complex pattern. It might require some experimentation and testing before it turns out right.
Handlooming, as I’ve previously discussed, provides many interesting properties when applied to cotton — it’s more loosely woven, irregular, and dense.1 In a word, it breathes. But there can be challenges trying to emulate fabrics that are by definition machine loomed. Canvas pants, known well via the duck canvas double knee pants sold by Carhartt, is something 18 East has paid tribute to in a few seasons. In an earlier iteration, Ciongoli and his team found that their khadi canvas fabric was prone to snagging and pulling given the loose nature of the weave.
“You want the look of something, but you also want it to perform,” said Ciongoli. “I would love to use all handlooms but sometimes it doesn’t work.” In those cases, they may use handspun yarn that is then power-loomed. This is the technical, iterative aspect they’re collaborating on with their team in India as they grow. He showed me the current iteration of the canvas pants, which he hopes will solve some of the issues.
18 East releases their items in drops; the written copy for each of their products demonstrates a myriad heritage influences from East and West: dabu mud-dye and Vermont wool, kantha stitch and PNW hiking jackets, raw Indian denim and Western dress shirts with kurta pockets.
It’s East Coast hiker in the Himalayas, skater punk in the streets of New Delhi, and yes, Indian colonial attire in the streets of Manhattan. Cultural appropriation might come to mind, but it’s perhaps more accurately an intercultural alchemy. In dialogue with multiple design traditions, new ways of wearing clothes emerged for me, someone for whom khadi has had deep meaning. Even knowing the history, it doesn’t necessarily read as Indian clothing when I wear brands like 3Sixteen, Post Romantic Co., 18 East, or some of the others I’ve eyed.
The Western designers acknowledge khadi’s important political history and try to educate their customers where possible; but also, they say, it’s simply a fascinating and challenging garment to work with.
Prasan Shah’s family has been witness to Indian fabrics influence on the West for nearly 50 years, importing Madras fabric and woven goods directly from Chennai (formerly the city of Madras) to New York. In 2020, the youngest Shah put his mark on the company and introduced an in-house brand, Original Madras Trading Company. Unlike what his father and grandfather provided for the Western market in their white-labelled goods, this line was exclusively handloomed.
“Madras was traditionally handwoven in this old wooden, pit loom,” said Shah. “All of the madras you see today with big brands is, more likely than not, not even made in Madras anymore. If it is, it’s machine-loomed madras.” This is despite the fact that the original tradition of madras was hand-loomed, bled copious natural dye, and was sourced from Chennai/Madras.
In addition to reviving handlooming in madras production, Shah also talks about the importance of “design intervention.” The talent of the hand-weavers in India guides their collections.
“It’s the role design plays in keeping a craft alive,” said Shah. “That is something that is important to us and we don’t take lightly.” This means, while they do offer traditionally preppy madras shirts, they’ve experimented with patchwork striped shirts, reversibles, and thick overshirts with what to the eye looks like multiple overlapping weaves.
Even as khadi is unfamiliar to many, its influence has seeped into the streets.
“There’s something very satisfying seeing people in Brooklyn and Silver Lake looking like clerks in 1970 Mumbai,” said Rajiv Menon, director of Los Angeles art gallery Rajiv Menon Contemporary (Menon is a friend who has rocketed to success featuring contemporary South Asian art since his gallery opened in 2023). Last year, he told me he’s increasingly featuring textile crafts for display and he makes an intentional effort in all of his press events to wear South Asian textiles and designers.
“(Khaddar) flies in the face of what we value in textiles,” he said. Things that industrialization introduced: color-fast dyes, smooth textures, and tight stitching. Some now crave imperfections after all the edge has been shorn off. Menon calls Khadi “inherently subversive” in a Western context.
Browse conversations about these items and you might find new customers complaining about inconsistencies in patterns, color, or stitching. The reply? That’s what happens when things are done naturally and by hand. That’s the whole point.
When Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the new Mayor of New York City, his attire mostly evoked urban formal politics — black overcoat, black suit, black tie, armor against the metropolitan cold dyed monochrome in mayoral masculinity. But his black tie featured floral gold silk handwork from India — it was custom-made by Kartik Research. South Asian aesthetics have had a long history in New York, but now, it’s an in-the-know, subcultural symbol of the creative class, which Mamdani looks poised to continue cultivating.
Khadi is just one of the many techniques Indian craftspeople have brought to the market. Colorful hand-embroidered kantha stitches, mud dyes, and and block printing clearly evoke India for customers. In many regards, khadi is the least flashy and the least obvious of these traditions, but perhaps also the most fundamental. Some brands, like Kartik Research, use khadi as a canvas on which to express many eclectic techniques in a single garment.
There’s a range of ways one can wear khadi and as a result, there’s a range of customers. I found this out the old fashioned way: on a niche, subcultural forum.
“at heart khadi just amps me up when i encounter, it’s a fabric with an energy. -drape, topology/texture…” said Styleforum user sartoria vacua to me in a text. Vacua is 57-years old and a kind of free-jazz, artist improviser-type, which you can tell from their texting style. “I’ve moved away from kit that can’t escape the luxury game, to fabrics that are more honest to the modest way I want to present in the universe… i’ll take less electricity around my life as i can get.”
Speaking casually to khadi customers of all sorts, I asked them about what they knew of the manufacturing and the history. Sometimes as we talked, it became clear we might not know for sure if something was khadi simply by touching it. Sometimes, I had to clarify to the sources that just because something has handmade elements does not mean it’s khadi. Mamdani’s silk tie with embroidery by Kartik? It certainly has hand stitching, but if it wasn’t both spun and loomed by hand, it’s wouldn’t be khadi (K.R., let me know!).
One other customer I spoke to was the musician Amir el Khalifa Mohamed, also known as Oddissee. The MC and rapper has previously been sponsored by brands like Carhartt WIP for his interest in heritage workwear. How does it feel to wear khadi for someone who professionally gets paid to wear clothes?
“To quote Larry June: I feel so organic,” said Oddisee. “I feel the most effortlessly comfortable and functional when I wear those pieces.…. all within (one) fabric.” I asked if Sudan had any tradition of handlooming. He confirmed, telling me stories of going to the market to get Eid jalabiyas that are all done by hand.
It opened up the question: if khadi is defined by handspun and handloomed fabrics, could other countries that have different styles of spinning and looming by hand call their clothes khadi?
Derek Guy, for one, doesn’t think so.
“I think of khadi like the way I think of champagne — it’s not champagne unless its from Champagne, France,” said Guy. In India, at least, there is a certification system for khadi, though from my research it’s unclear how reputable that is. “You have collectives in the US making completely handmade fabric and it’s beautiful. I would not call it khadi.”
Given its lo-fi, small-batch, inherently indigenous nature, khadi may never be found in big box stores. But also, don’t be surprised if J.Crew one day does a collaboration or drop of hand-loomed pieces in hopes of capturing some of this momentum.
There is one place where I can see it making an impact. In the niche of classic menswear suiting, a khadi suit is a slam-dunk. Cotton has always been an interesting suiting fabric, but it can be stiff. Khadi could solve that. But the khadi suit needs champions. For now, that may just be me.
For part 3, we’ll return to Pakistani khadi, which was overall unknown to any of the consumers or producers I spoke to here. I’ll be reviewing an innovative oddity: a hand-loomed suit made by Post-Romantic Company. It’ll be a bit of a personal essay that gets at the root of Rad Brown Dads with my own Abu.
Wool and silk can be handloomed as well, but for this piece, I only looked at cotton.
I was inspired to read your Substack after a friend sent me your bean pie essay (I always make sure to eat my fill of Supreme bean pies when I'm visiting family in Chicago). I’m also kind of a textile nerd so I’ve been enjoying your series on khadi. Your hypothetical floppy disk loom was actually invented in France in the 19th century, but used punch cards(!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_machine
Having fun digging into your archives!
i feel cool reading this (bc its for cool guys)