Madras is a woven fact before it is a pattern. Cotton dyed with turmeric, cochineal and indigo left South India as trade cloth and became the everyday dress of the French Antilles — the grande robe créole, its foulard, and above all the calendé headtie folded into peaks.

The peaks counted: one for single, two for married, three for widowed or divorced, four for open to whoever asked. This system takes that seriously. Bands of unequal width cross at right angles, hairline white rules the intervals, and every intersection sits darker than either band that made it.