When Italian luxury house Prada recently unveiled its version of the Kolhapuri chappal, Indian social media was quick to react. Accusations of cultural appropriation and erasure followed, accompanied by demands for proper attribution and a wider call to “decolonise fashion”. But what if the cultural erasure didn’t start with Prada, or with the West? What … Read more
On June 25, as India’s GI-tagged Kolhapuri chappal featured in Prada’s Spring/Summer 2026 show in Milan, it made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Where was the credit? In Maharashtra’s Kolhapur, over 10,000 artisan families have been crafting these chappals by hand for generations. Famous for their use of vegetable-tanned leather, intricate braiding techniques of … Read more
Slipping into a pair of thin brown Kolhapuri chappals is like stepping into an age-old tradition. These leather sandals are now the sole cause of a bitter war. It began in 2019, when the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks, under the commerce ministry, granted the geographical indication (GI) tag to Kolhapuri chappals … Read more