Types of Cotton Fabric in India: Mul, Cambric, Voile, Poplin and Slub, Explained

A label that says one hundred percent cotton tells you almost nothing useful. It names the plant, not the cloth. Two kurtis can both be pure cotton and one will be transparent, weightless and damp-free by lunch, while the other holds a knife-sharp pleat and feels like cardboard in July.

The difference is the weave, and in India it has names. Here are the five you will meet most often, what each one actually does, and how to choose between them without touching the fabric.

The one number that predicts most of it

GSM stands for grams per square metre. It is the honest shorthand for how much cotton is in a given piece of cloth, and almost every property people care about tracks it.

Below roughly 70 GSM you get air and transparency. Between 90 and 120 you get the sweet spot for Indian daily wear. Above 140 you get structure, opacity and heat retention. Good brands publish it. Most do not, which is why the physical checks further down matter.

Mul cotton, also called mulmul or muslin

Roughly 55 to 70 GSM. Plain weave, very low thread density.

Mul is the lightest cotton in common use in India. The yarn is fine and the threads sit far apart, which is why you can read newsprint through a single layer. It is the fabric of Bengali summer sarees and of the dupattas that weigh nothing in a bag.

What it does brilliantly is move moisture. Sweat leaves the skin, travels through the open weave and evaporates before you register it as damp. In Mumbai or Chennai humidity, nothing else comes close.

What it does badly is hold shape or hide anything. Mul crumples if you look at it, and it needs a lining or a contrast inner for anything above the waist. It also wears out faster than heavier cottons, because there is simply less fibre taking the abrasion.

Buy mul for: peak summer, coastal humidity, dupattas, house kurtas, anything you want to feel like nothing.

Voile

Roughly 70 to 90 GSM. Plain weave, high-twist yarn.

Voile is mul's tidier relative. The yarn is twisted harder before weaving, which gives the cloth a crisper hand and a faint dry rustle. It is still semi-sheer, but it hangs in a defined line instead of collapsing, and it takes a fine print far better than mul does because the surface is smoother.

This is the classic fabric for printed summer kurtas that need to look considered rather than casual. It creases, but it creases in soft folds rather than hard lines.

Buy voile for: printed summer kurtis, layered looks, anything where you want lightness without looking rumpled by 2pm.

Cambric

Roughly 90 to 120 GSM. Tight plain weave, calendered on one side.

Cambric is the workhorse of the Indian kurti industry and most people have never heard the name. It is woven densely, then pressed between rollers, which gives it a smooth face and a slightly stiff, papery finish when new.

The trade is deliberate. You lose some airflow compared with mul and voile, and you gain opacity, shape retention and a clean surface that reads as put-together across a nine-hour day. A cambric kurta does not cling, does not need an inner, and looks the same at 6pm as it did at 9am.

The catch is drying time. Cambric absorbs a lot of moisture and holds it, so in genuine humidity it can feel heavy where mul would feel like nothing. It also softens considerably after four or five washes, which is when most people start actually liking it.

Buy cambric for: office wear, semi-formal, everyday kurtis you want to machine-wash and not think about. Our office kurti styling guide assumes something close to this weight.

Poplin

Roughly 110 to 140 GSM. Tight plain weave with a fine crosswise rib.

Poplin is cambric's more formal cousin. The weft yarn is thicker than the warp, producing a subtle horizontal rib you can feel with a fingernail. That structure is why poplin holds a collar, a placket and a crease better than anything else on this list.

It is also the least breathable cotton here. Tightly packed threads leave almost no air path, so poplin in a Gujarat May is a mistake. In an air-conditioned office, in a shirt dress, in winter, it is excellent.

Buy poplin for: shirt dresses, collared kurtas, formal settings, cooler months, anything that needs to look pressed.

Slub cotton

Varies widely, typically 100 to 160 GSM. Plain weave with intentionally irregular yarn.

Slub is not a weave so much as a yarn choice. The thread is spun with deliberate thick sections, which produces a nubbly, textured surface with visible variation. It reads as handmade even when it is not, which is precisely why the market is full of it.

Honest slub cotton is a good fabric: it hides creases well, has more body than voile, and has genuine visual interest without a print. Be aware that machine slub repeats on a rhythm, while the irregularity in genuinely hand-spun cloth does not. That distinction is the heart of our khadi versus cotton guide, and it is worth knowing before you pay a handmade premium for a mill product.

Buy slub for: texture without print, low-maintenance daily wear, pieces where you want the cloth to carry the interest.

Quick comparison

Three checks when you cannot see the label

• The window test. Hold one layer up to daylight. Visible gaps between threads means mul or voile. A solid field of colour means cambric, poplin or slub.
• The drape test. Let a corner hang from two fingers. Mul collapses into soft folds. Voile falls in a defined line. Poplin sticks out and holds a shape.
• The fingernail test. Drag a nail lightly across the surface. Poplin has a faint ribbed catch running one way only. Cambric is smooth and slightly slick. Slub catches irregularly.

What we use, and why

Our kurtis sit mostly in the cambric-to-slub range, between roughly 100 and 130 GSM. That choice is not aesthetic. Below 90 GSM a hand block print bleeds at the edges and loses its line, and above 140 the fabric stops being comfortable in an Ahmedabad summer. The middle is where a hand-printed piece stays crisp and still breathes.

The Nilufar Stole is the exception, because a stole has different work to do. We chose modal silk rather than cotton for it, and the reasoning is set out here.

If you want the seasonal view rather than the weave view, read our guide to fabrics through India's seasons. For where our cotton begins, From Field to Fabric. And for the fibres that sit outside cotton entirely, see linen, hemp, Tencel, modal and bamboo compared.

Khadi, properly explained

Khadi is not simply another point on the GSM scale like the five weaves above, it is a distinct category defined by how the yarn is spun rather than by weight alone: hand-spun on a charkha, then hand-woven, rather than machine-spun and machine-woven like every fabric described so far. That hand-spinning produces genuinely irregular yarn thickness, which is what gives khadi its distinctive slightly uneven, breathable hand, closer in spirit to slub cotton but arrived at through an entirely different, slower process.

Desi cotton versus long-staple imported varieties

Much of India's traditional handloom cloth is woven from desi cotton, a shorter-staple indigenous variety that behaves differently from the long-staple Egyptian or American cotton used in finer mill fabrics. Desi cotton tends to produce a slightly coarser, more textured cloth with excellent breathability, while long-staple cotton spins into smoother, finer yarn better suited to poplin and fine voile. Neither is objectively better; they simply suit different weaves and different climates.

Caring for each weave according to its weight

Lighter weaves like mul and voile need gentler handling through the wash, since their open structure is more vulnerable to snagging and abrasion than denser cambric or poplin. We would hand wash or use a delicate machine cycle for anything under 90 GSM, and reserve a standard machine wash for the sturdier cambric-and-above range, where the tighter weave genuinely tolerates more.

Choosing cotton weight for children and sensitive skin

For children's clothing and for anyone with sensitive skin, the lighter, more breathable weaves, mul and voile specifically, tend to cause less irritation through heat and friction than heavier, tighter weaves like poplin. The trade-off is durability, since lighter cotton wears through faster under the particular abuse children's clothing receives, so many parents find a cambric-weight piece the more practical middle ground for everyday wear.

Frequently asked questions

Which cotton fabric is best for Indian summer?
Mul cotton, at 55 to 70 GSM, is the most breathable and the fastest to dry. Voile is the best compromise if you need mul's coolness but want the piece to hold its shape.

Is cambric better than cotton?
Cambric is cotton. It is a tightly woven, calendered cotton, so the comparison is really cambric against other cotton weaves. Cambric is more opaque and holds shape better than mul or voile, and it breathes less.

What is the difference between mul and mulmul?
They are the same fabric. Mul, mulmul and muslin all refer to the fine, loosely woven cotton traditionally made in Bengal.

What GSM is good for a kurti?
Between 90 and 130 GSM suits most Indian conditions. Below 90 you will usually need an inner. Above 140 the piece will feel warm outside winter.

Which cotton does not need ironing?
Slub cotton hides creases best because the surface is already irregular. Poplin holds a press longest but shows a crease sharply once it forms.