Cotton textiles are major features of these traditional dresses, which serve both cultural and practical purposes. This very piece is made of coarse cotton cloth, mostly off-white in color, because of the fact that the Toda tribe is very close to nature in the use of raw materials and it also prefers simplicity in its designs. Coarse cotton is used, showing that it has a purpose for many day-to-day usages, is strong, and therefore capable of withstanding the hard life involved in the pastoral-nature life of the Toda community.

Each side has a narrow red stripe along its boundary, an important pattern in the Toda Tribe. The red color represents power, energy, and life, core principles of Toda life. Besides being an ornamental stripe, it is also representative of the aesthetic tradition of the Toda tribe in which color and simplicity come together to make very impressive patterns yet very meaningful. This cotton textile piece finds its application in a multitude of ways-be it as a textile or in the context of ceremonial attire worn by Toda women and men. It's an integral part of how this tribe survives, subsists, and evolves against the fabric of life-globalized but majestic in its very singularity with regard to culture.