What it is

Khadi is Indian cloth in its truest form: cotton spun by hand on a wheel called a charkha, then woven by hand on a wooden loom. There is no machinery between the cotton boll and the finished metre. Each length carries the rhythm of two human hands — the spinner’s and the weaver’s — and bears the small irregularities that betray that fact. Slubs in the yarn, a slight variation in width, a thread that runs heavier than its neighbour: these are not flaws. They are signatures.

The word khadi carries a political weight in India that few cloths do. It was made central to Gandhi’s movement for self-reliance in the 1920s; the charkha became the symbol on the flag of the Indian National Congress. To wear khadi is to wear a fragment of that lineage — a cloth that helped a country imagine itself free of imported mill cotton.

How it is made

Cotton bolls are hand-cleaned and combed into rovings. A spinner sits at her charkha — sometimes a small portable wheel, sometimes a larger floor wheel — and draws out fibre with one hand while turning the wheel with the other. A skilled spinner produces roughly 100 grams of yarn in a full day’s work.

That yarn is then sized (treated lightly with a starch to strengthen it for the loom), wound onto pirns, and warped onto a handloom. Weaving on a pit loom or frame loom proceeds at one to two metres of finished cloth per day. A single shirt’s worth of khadi may represent four to six full working days of two artisans.

The hand

Khadi feels alive against the skin. It begins crisp — almost paper-like after its first wash — and softens with each subsequent one, drawing closer to the body over months. It breathes in heat. It absorbs natural dye unevenly, which gives khadi colours a depth that mill cotton cannot match. Hold a length to the light: you will see the variations in thread and the small windows of air that make it cool.

Why it is rare and worth its price

A power loom produces sixty to eighty metres of cotton fabric per day. A khadi handloom produces one to two. The wage that a khadi spinner earns is paid into a rural economy that mass cotton has largely hollowed out — most of India’s cotton ginning and weaving is now industrial. Every metre of khadi keeps two artisans in the supply chain and pays them, traceably, for their hours.

What you are buying, when you buy khadi, is not only cloth. It is a small economic vote for the survival of a craft that has been continuously practised for centuries.

How to care for it

• Wash: hand-wash in cold water with a mild, pH-neutral detergent or a soap meant for delicates. Avoid harsh enzyme detergents — they break down the natural fibres over time.
• Do not wring. Press the water out gently between your palms, or roll the garment briefly in a clean dry towel.
• Dry: line-dry in shade. Direct sun will bleach natural dyes and over-brighten white khadi.
• Iron: warm, ideally while still slightly damp. Khadi takes a press exceptionally well; the crispness will hold for days.
• Expect change. Khadi softens noticeably over the first five to ten washes. The garment you wear at month three will feel quite different from the one you bought. This is right and normal.
• Store folded in a dry place. Cotton resists moths but invites silverfish in damp climates — keep your wardrobe ventilated.

Best worn as

Shirts, kurtas, dresses, light jackets, scarves. Khadi is a year-round cloth in temperate climates and a summer staple in Australia. It does not suit hard tailoring — suits, structured coats — because its character is in its drape, not its discipline.