Original Madras Trading Company is a third-generation, family-run textile maker that connects generations of South Indian weaving with the enduring place of Madras cloth in American Ivy style. Its New York story began in the early 1970s, when the founder’s grandfather arrived from Madras with a trunk of checked fabrics. OMTC still operates from the Garment District while producing entirely in Madras (now Chennai), India. Authentic Madras is a pure Indian cotton, yarn-dyed plain weave, and OMTC returns the cloth to its most elemental form through single-weaver handloom production. Each length is woven start to finish by one artisan, creating subtle irregularities, exceptional depth of color, and virtually limitless pattern combinations that mechanized weaving cannot replicate. From yarn arrival through the finished garment, production remains in-house, preserving a human-scale textile tradition with minimal waste and no electricity used in weaving. Applied to classic shirting, these singular fabrics connect centuries of Indian craft with the relaxed character that made Madras an enduring fixture of the American wardrobe.