জগন্নাথ

Jaconet is a lightweight, slightly stiff cotton cloth with a smooth finish. The word comes from Jagannath Puri (জগন্নাথ পুরী), the temple city in Odisha, eastern India. British East India Company traders operating along the Bay of Bengal coast in the 1700s sourced fine cotton textiles from the region and named them after the nearest major port. Jagannath became Jaconet in English, the same way Calicut became calico and Madras became madras cloth.

The fabric was prized for its clean finish and versatility. It could be left plain for linings and interfacings, or glazed for a polished surface, or printed with floral patterns for dress fabric. By the late 1700s, jaconet was one of the most popular Indian cottons in the British market. It appeared in fashion plates, drapers' catalogues, and the inventories of Jane Austen's era. The muslin dresses of the Regency period were often made from jaconet or its close relatives.

Indian textile imports threatened the British weaving industry so severely that Parliament passed the Calico Acts in 1700 and 1721, banning or restricting imported Indian printed cottons. Jaconet, being plain or lightly finished, sometimes escaped these restrictions. But the larger effect was to push British manufacturers to develop their own cotton industry — powered by the spinning jenny, the water frame, and eventually the steam engine. The Industrial Revolution was, in part, an attempt to replicate what Indian handloom weavers already did.

Jaconet is still a term in textile manufacturing, though it now refers to any lightweight cotton with a slight stiffness. The temple city of Jagannath Puri — home to one of Hinduism's holiest shrines and the origin of the English word 'juggernaut' — gave its name to both a cotton cloth and an unstoppable force. The cloth was stoppable. British tariffs and machine looms ended Indian dominance within a century.