Original Madras Trading Company

Original Madras Trading Company is a third-generation family business with offices in New York's Garment District, on 38th Street, looking out at the Empire State Building. The founder's grandfather arrived in the early 1970s with a trunk full of Madras checks, and the company still supplies fabrics and garments from southern India to brands around the world.

Its own handloom project makes clothing from exclusively handwoven cloth, from button down shirts to jackets and bath robes. Each length is woven start to finish by one weaver, in Madras, now Chennai, with no electricity used in weaving. The result is subtle irregularities and deep colour that mechanised weaving cannot replicate.