Fabric Definitions — definitions of fabrics, cloths, laces and textile materials from Apparel Search
Calico is a fabric made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is less coarse and thick than canvas or denim, but owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance it is still very cheap. In Britain in 1700, importation of cotton cloth from India was banned to protect the British textile industry; the ban failed and was strengthened in 1720.
Calico is a fabric made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may contain unseparated husk parts, for example. The fabric is less coarse and thick than canvas or denim, but owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance, it is still very cheap.
In 1700, Britain banned importation of cotton cloth (or calico) from India, in an effort to prop up British textile industry. Indian textiles were superior. The ban failed, and was strengthened in 1720. It almost destroyed the Indian textile industry, and India was forced to buy British textiles.
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One Word, Several ClothsCalico needs careful handling because usage splits by place and period. In British usage calico is the plain, unbleached cotton cloth itself — the inexpensive utility fabric sold for toiles, linings, aprons and craft work. In American usage the same word came to mean a printed cotton, typically a small floral pattern on a light ground, the dress fabric of nineteenth-century frontier clothing; the plain unbleached cloth in America is more often called muslin. Both usages descend from the same Indian trade cloth, and confusing them leads to real purchasing errors, since a British calico order arrives unbleached and unprinted while an American calico order arrives patterned. The shared core is a simple plain-weave cotton of modest quality — a cloth defined by economy rather than by finish. Why an Unfinished Cloth Changed Trade HistoryCalico's historical weight is out of proportion to its simplicity. Indian hand-produced cottons were finer, cheaper and better printed than anything European makers could produce at the end of the seventeenth century, and demand for them was strong enough to threaten Britain's wool and silk interests into obtaining the bans of 1700 and 1720. The protection had unintended consequences in both directions: India lost its export industry, while British makers, shielded at home and pushed to imitate the prohibited cloth, invested in the spinning and weaving machinery that made cotton the first great factory industry. The plain unbleached cloth in a modern craft shop is the direct descendant of the fabric at the center of that story — still unbleached, still inexpensive, still bought precisely because nothing has been spent on finishing it. Common QuestionsWhat makes a cotton fabric a calico?Its unfinished state: calico is woven from unbleached cotton that is often not fully processed, so the cloth keeps a natural, undyed appearance and may show flecks of husk. It is a plain, light-to-medium cotton — less coarse and thick than canvas or denim — and its cheapness follows directly from the processing steps that are skipped. Where does the word calico come from?From Calicut, the port on the Malabar Coast of India through which these cotton cloths were traded to Europe. Indian calicoes were superior to early British cottons, which is precisely why British producers sought protection from them. What were the Calico Acts?Laws of 1700 and 1720 banning first the import and then effectively the use of Indian cotton cloth in Britain, intended to prop up the British textile industry. The first ban failed and was strengthened; the policy nearly destroyed the Indian textile industry it targeted and forced India to buy British textiles instead. More to ExploreMore from Apparel Search: Fabric Definitions | Clothing Industry Glossary | Fashion Terms | Apparel Search Home
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