Madras (cloth) handwoven (evidenced by the small flaws in the fabric). Cotton madras is woven from a fragile, short-staple cotton fiber that can't be combed, only carded, resulting in bumps known as slubs which are thick spots in the yarn that give madras its unique texture. The cotton is hand-dyed after being spun into yarn, woven and finished in some 200 small villages in the Madras area. Madras fabric is generally regarded as belonging to the peasant class in its native India. Dutch traders arrived in India in the early 1600s to trade in the local calico cloth, followed by the British.
Scarlet (cloth) Scarlet (cloth) Scarlet was a type of fine and expensive woollen cloth common in Medieval Europe. In the assessment of John Munro, 'the medieval "scarlet" was therefore a very high-priced, luxury, woollen broadcloth, invariably woven from the finest English wools, and always dyed with kermes, even if mixed with woad, and other dyestuffs. There is no evidence for the use of the term "scarlet" for any other textile, even though other textiles, especially silks, were also dyed with kermes.' The origins of the word "scarlet" have been debated quite extensively and are crucial to understanding what scarlet actually was in