What is Silk Matka and Why Do We Use It?

If you have not encountered silk matka before, you are not alone. It is one of those fabrics that exists quietly at the edge of fashion's awareness in the West — known to those who work with cloth seriously, largely invisible to everyone else. Which is a shame, because it is one of the most useful and beautiful fabrics a summer coat can be made from.

Matka is a raw silk. Fibres are hand-spun into a thicker, irregular yarn — the word Matka coming from the Bengali for "rough" — and woven into a cloth that sits in a remarkable middle ground: it has the weight, breathability and texture of a light linen. It is, in short, entirely its own thing.

What makes it particularly suited to summer coats is that it is both light and resistant to wrinkling. What's more it holds its shape throughout a long day. It breathes. It drapes beautifully. It takes colour with depth. And thanks to the natural slubs and irregularities in the weave, light falls across the surface differently at different angles, giving the fabric an almost painterly quality.

Our silk matka is woven in India, where the tradition of matka weaving has been practised for generations. We source ours in Britain and offer it in a range of colours — from the most subtle and neutral to the most saturated — and we use it for a wide variety of our coat styles, from our A-line occasionwear coats to our trapeze daywear styles. It works equally well for a mother of the bride coat, a wedding guest coat, or a coat for a woman who simply wants something beautiful and well made to wear on any day that calls for it.

And it lasts — a well-made silk matka coat, cared for properly, will not date, will not fall apart, and will not end up in a landfill at the end of a season.

We use it because it is exceptional. And because coats are needed, even in summer.