Brown cotton (Gossypium arboreum) is one of the oldest cultivated cottons, traced back to the Indus Valley civilisation around 3000 BC. It was widely grown across India in shades of brown, producing short-staple fibre that was spun and woven for centuries before industrial textile production. The shift towards high-yield white BT cotton during and after the Green Revolution effectively killed demand for coloured varieties, and brown cotton nearly disappeared from Indian agriculture.
Naturally coloured cotton also exists in Central and South America, where it has been cultivated for over 2,000 years. In the late 1980s, Sally Fox began selectively breeding brown and green cotton in the US, creating the first naturally coloured varieties that could be machine-spun. Her work, branded FoxFibre, brought coloured cotton back into commercial relevance.
What draws us to brown cotton is that the material is almost alive — its colour deepens with time and wear rather than fading. Our work with it involves pushing the material further by blending it with other natural fibres for added functionality, and exploring the range of visual depth that can be achieved when it interacts with different weaves, yarn combinations, and dyeing processes. We have deliberately limited our exploration to handweaving and knitting with this material as a way to find a distinct character compared to what already exists out there.
