Dorea

What is Dorea?

Dorea was a light woven cloth of the Indian subcontinent, patterned with stripes or checks. The plainest kind carried its stripes along the warp, the lengthwise threads set on the loom. At first it was made entirely in cotton; later weavers wove it in silk, in tussar, a wild silk, or in the two fibres together. Period writers call its texture flimsy beside Ilayecha, another cloth of the day. One recipe set a warp of three parts cotton to two parts tussar, sometimes in different colours, over a weft of plain cotton in a single shade, so the stripes ran down the length. The weavers dyed the yarn themselves before the loom.

Where does Dorea come from?

Dorea's name appears in the Ain-i-Akbari, a record of the Mughal empire, where it is listed among the cotton cloths of its day beside Khasa, Salu, Bafta, Tansukh and Panchtoliya. The cloth was woven across the Indian subcontinent. Bengal's export trade carried it abroad: the sources place Dorea at one end of a fineness range that stretched, through named cloths such as chintz, Guinea cloth and Garra, as far as sailcloth. Handloom weavers made it and dyed their own yarn, so each length was coloured in the thread before weaving began.

How is Dorea made?

Dorea was woven with colour put into the yarn before it reached the loom, not applied to the finished cloth: the sources say the weavers dyed the thread entirely themselves. A described version used a warp of three parts cotton to two parts tussar, or of mixed colours, crossed by a weft of plain cotton in one shade, which is what made the stripes run lengthwise. The simplest form was the continued striped Dorea, with its lines unbroken down the warp. Two named variants changed direction: Are-doriya carried diagonal stripes, while Salaidar set them across the width, along the weft. Later versions replaced some or all of the cotton with silk or tussar.

Colours, motifs and borders

The pattern language of Dorea was line and grid. Some lengths were striped, some checked. In the plainest cloth the stripes ran unbroken along the warp, down the length of the fabric. Are-doriya turned the lines diagonally, and Salaidar laid them across the width, following the weft. Colour came from the dyed thread: a warp might mix cotton and tussar, or colours, while the weft stayed a single shade, so the stripes read clearly against the ground. Compared with Ilayecha, a fellow cloth of its time, Dorea was the flimsier of the two, with a light hand.

Styles of Dorea

The cloth shifted with material and geometry. Early Dorea was all cotton; later weavers worked in silk, in tussar, or in silk and cotton together, and one recipe mixed three parts cotton with two parts tussar in the warp. The simplest kind was the continued striped Dorea, its lines running unbroken down the warp. Are-doriya set the stripes diagonally. Salaidar crossed them, laying stripes along the weft so they ran widthwise. Each variant kept the same idea of colour dyed into the yarn and built on the loom.

What Dorea means

Dorea's name survives largely through paperwork. The Ain-i-Akbari, an account of the Mughal empire, lists it among the cotton cloths of the day, beside Khasa, Bafta, Tansukh and Panchtoliya. Bengal's export trade placed it in a long list of cloths sent abroad, from Dorea itself through chintz and Guinea cloth to sailcloth, a commerce that carried the work of many weavers. Those weavers handled colour as well as cloth: the sources describe them dyeing the yarn entirely themselves before it reached the loom.

Questions people ask about Dorea

Good reading and sources

• Dorea (cloth) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data