School is back in session, the weather is getting cooler, the leaves are starting to change color, and the NFL season just kicked off. Everywhere you look, all signs are pointing to autumn; and with the change in season, you may be thinking about changes in your wardrobe. But is it too late to break out that quintessential summer pattern, madras?
As we told you a few days ago, the preppy look is expected to make a new-and-improved return and part of being a full-on soc (see S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders) means having an ample supply of madras garments at your fingertips. Yet, with the season changing, donning a brightly colored madras shirt may be fine for a summer croquet game, but feel out of place as you head off enjoy the fall foliage.
This might seem strange, since to the untrained eye madras fabrics don’t appear to be much different from plaids and flannels, two fabrics that are decidedly fall-appropriate. All three feature multi-chrome prints/weaves composed of lines with varying thickness and color, so they all should be suitable to wear while carving pumpkins or ringing in Oktoberfest, right?
Well, actually there are a few key differences between madras and similar fabrics. For one thing, plaids and flannels are usually more geometric in their patterns and much darker in color. Madras shirts, on the other hand, look more patch-work-y in comparison and/or are more unpredictable in their distribution of color (the paintings of Swiss painter Paul Klee come to mind, see above). Furthermore, they may feature half a dozen (or more) bright/light colors and thus a funkier “party time” feel better suited for warm months.
In terms of construction, madras fabrics are also usually too thin to be comfortable on their own once the temps start to fall. You may have to layer a madras shirt, for example, with a sweater or jacket. Finding matching attire to go with these brazen prints may not be easy, but try to find the most dominate color contained in the fabric and use your color-wheel know-how to proceed from there.
Finally, your laundry situation may be another factor holding you back from wearing madras this fall. Madras fabrics are notorious for shrinking if not properly cleaned; and proper cleaning means either hand washing, dry cleaning or gambling with the cold water cycle on your washing machine. Madras fabrics should be air dried, which may take a while if you live in a places where autumns are damp and chilly. If you think this is a hassle, you can at least be grateful that most madras materials no longer have a problem with running colors (ask your dad about “bleeding madras” in the 1960’s and he’ll probably tell you a few horror stories).
Whether you’re interested in wearing madras or not, the larger lesson here is that looking good involves more than just putting together colors that match and dressing to suit a particular event or situation; it also involves dressing to suit the season. No matter how much you like a certain item of clothing, it may look out of place during certain times of year. Depending on where you live, there may still be a few good weekends where you can get some use out of your madras. But just remember that warm weather will always come again and, despite the current push towards preppy, madras prints are always timeless summer favorites.
Similar Posts:
- Making Madras Work
- Fashion Trends for Spring
- Power To The Preppy
- Up on the Snowy Hills
- Piece by Piece: Bundled Up
