What Is Calico?

How is calico made?

Calico is made by weaving cotton yarn in a plain weave, then either leaving the cloth in its natural colour or bleaching, dyeing or printing it. In a plain weave, also called tabby, each warp thread passes over one weft thread and under the next, so the cloth looks the same on both sides until it is printed.

1. Fibre: cotton, the seed fibre of the cotton plant. Calico is an all-cotton cloth.
2. Weaving: the yarn is woven over-one, under-one into a plain, firm cloth.
3. Finishing: the cloth is usually woven in cotton’s natural, undyed colour and then bleached, dyed or printed.
4. Printing (for patterned calico): early calicoes were patterned by resist-dyeing or by stamping, and the oldest surviving pieces are block-printed.

Why does calico mean different things in the UK and the US?

Calico means different things because the word took on a second sense in American use. It entered English in the 1530s meaning white cotton cloth, close to the plain cloth Britain still calls calico; from about 1800, Americans used it for printed cotton cloth coarser than muslin.

When a British pattern tells you to make a toile “in calico”, it means plain, unprinted cotton. When an American source describes a “calico dress”, it means a small-print cotton. Check which country a pattern, shop or book comes from before you buy. Compared with muslin, British calico is the slightly heavier of the two plain cottons.

A V&A example shows the British sense at work: a 1968 Royal College of Art graduate toile for a sleeveless tunic, made of cotton calico, with six pattern pieces marked in pen and pencil. This is a different thing from toile de Jouy, which is a printed pattern, not a test garment.

Where does calico come from?

Calico comes from India: Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s CAMEO database both say it originated in Calicut by the 11th century, and Britannica adds “if not earlier”. The English word is recorded from the 1530s, as “kalyko cloth”. Etymonline explains that Calicut was the port where Europeans first obtained the cloth, so the name records a trading port; it does not prove that every cloth sold as calico was woven there.

Early printed calicoes

Printed calicoes are mentioned in the 12th century by the Indian writer Hemacandra. Britannica dates the earliest surviving fragments to the 15th century; they were found at Fustat, near Cairo, not in India; they are Gujarati work, resist-dyed and block-printed. Designs made for home use favoured small flowers, pinecones, allover (diaper) and geometric patterns, while export designs were adapted to foreign tastes. In India, printed calico went mostly into garments, and the sari was almost always printed.

Calico in England and the Calico Acts

In the 17th and 18th centuries calico was an important trade good between India and Europe, and in England printed calico was used for hangings, bedcovers and dresses. Its popularity provoked a backlash from domestic weavers:

• 1700: Parliament banned the import of printed calico into England but left plain calico unregulated. The ban encouraged an English industry printing and dyeing cloth.
• 1719: Woollen and silk weavers protested in towns across England; in London the protests began on 10 June 1719 and turned violent against women wearing calico.
• 1721: the Calico Act, given royal assent on 23 March 1721, prohibited importing all plain and printed calico from South Asia for sale in Britain and outlawed wearing and using it.

What are the properties of calico?

Calico behaves like the cotton it is made from: it absorbs water, stays strong when wet, shrinks when washed and does not take dye easily.

• Absorbent: cotton takes up water readily.
• Strong when wet: it survives frequent washing.
• Shrinks: cotton swells in water, so unshrunk calico gets smaller the first time it is washed.
• Takes marking: the flat, plain surface can be drawn on, as the pen and pencil markings on the V&A’s calico toile show.
• Dyeing: cotton does not take dye easily, so plan to use a dye made for cotton.

How is calico graded or measured?

Calico has no fineness grade on its label: what changes from one calico to another is how heavy it is, how closely it is woven and whether it is natural, bleached or printed. Under US labelling rules a garment label must give the fibre and its percentage, not the cloth weight or thread density, so you judge those by hand and eye (see below).

Calico is sold in different weights. Use the weight that matches the final fabric: a toile for a coat needs a heavier calico than one for a blouse, so the test garment behaves like the real thing.

How does calico appear on a clothing label?

Calico appears on a clothing label as cotton, because calico is the name of a cloth, not of a fibre. US rules require fibres to be named by their generic names, such as “cotton”, with percentages by weight.

• “100% cotton”: the cloth is all cotton, as true calico is.
• Blends (US rules): fibres making up 5 per cent or more are listed by name in order of weight, for example “65% cotton, 35% polyester”. The cloth may look like calico, but it will not behave like it.
• “Other fiber”: fibres under 5 per cent are usually grouped under this phrase rather than named.
• Tolerance: the stated percentages may be out by up to 3 per cent, so “40% cotton” can mean 37 to 43 per cent.

How do you tell good calico from poor calico?

Good calico is all cotton, evenly woven and honest about its shrinkage; poor calico hides a blend or shrinks out of shape after the first wash. These checks take a few minutes:

1. Read the fibre label or bolt end. Calico should say cotton. A polyester blend is a different cloth, whatever it is called on the shelf.
2. Hold it up to the light. A plain weave shows a regular grid of crossing threads. Thin patches, uneven spacing or threads of very different thickness show careless weaving.
3. Wash a test square. Cut a 20 cm square, wash and dry it as you will wash the garment, then measure it again. Because cotton shrinks in water, the result tells you how much to allow, or whether to prewash the whole length.
4. Turn printed calico over. Printed calico carries its design on one side, so the back is paler. A pattern that looks equally strong on both sides may not be a printed calico at all.
5. Match the weight to the job. For a toile, choose a calico close in weight to the final fabric, or the fit you test will not be the fit you get.

Red flags: no fibre content on a garment label; “calico” used as if it were a fibre name; a printed calico that loses colour on a damp white cloth rubbed across the face.

How do you care for calico?

Care for calico as you would other cotton: follow the care label, and expect shrinkage on the first wash unless the cloth is sold as pre-shrunk. Cotton is strong when wet, so calico tolerates regular washing.

• Prewash calico yardage before cutting a garment, so the shrinkage happens before sewing rather than after.
• Wash printed calico separately for the first few washes in case the print sheds dye.
• Calico used for aprons and household goods can be washed often; check the care label for the temperature.

Is calico sustainable?

Calico is as sustainable as the cotton it is woven from and the finishing it receives, and the word “calico” tells you nothing about either. A US fibre label gives the fibre, its percentage, the maker or an identification number, and the country where the garment was made, but nothing about how the cotton was grown.

Two things are checkable. Unbleached calico has skipped the bleaching stage that white calico goes through. And if the cotton’s origin matters to you, look for a separate certification or a named organic cotton claim rather than relying on the cloth name. For the wider picture, see sustainable fashion.