By Shivanand Pandit
On June 2025, Milan’s fashion week witnessed a moment that sparked global debate. Italian luxury giant Prada unveiled its Spring/Summer 2026 menswear collection, which included footwear strongly inspired by India’s iconic Kolhapuri chappals. These open-toed, handmade leather sandals, traditionally crafted from tan buffalo hide and natural dyes like babul bark, have been a symbol of western Maharashtra’s cultural heritage for centuries. Recognised under India’s Geographical Indications (GI) system since 2019, the Kolhapuri chappals represent not just a fashion accessory but a living craft embodying tradition, skill, and community identity.
The backlash was immediate. Fashion pundits, social commentators, and guardians of Indian heritage called out Prada for what they saw as cultural appropriation — borrowing a deeply rooted Indian craft tradition, rebranding it without acknowledging its origins, and selling it at high-end Western prices far removed from the earnings of Indian artisans. The anger was understandable: after all, it felt like a familiar story of a powerful Western brand taking creative liberties with an Eastern heritage, profiting from it, while local makers stayed on the margins.
Prada responded by acknowledging the uproar and promising to collaborate with Indian artisans to uphold its commitment to responsible fashion. While this gesture was welcomed, it also raised a broader question: once we have secured credit for the chappals, what next? Can this be an opportunity to build long-lasting partnerships, ensuring that traditional crafts do not merely get name-checked in a global runway show, but that artisans themselves see meaningful economic returns and a creative stake?.
The Prada episode is not isolated. Other brands have walked similar tightropes: Christian Dior was accused by Delhi-based label The People’s Tree of copying its boho-chic block print dress, while Zara faced protests for a skirt that resembled the Indian lungi, priced 20 times higher than a traditional version. Likewise, the Reformation drew criticism for marketing a dupatta as a “Scandinavian scarf,” prompting South Asian communities to call out the erasure of their cultural identity. These recurring stories reveal a tension in global fashion between inspiration, which is legitimate, and appropriation, which feels like theft without consent or credit.
The Prada-Kolhapuri drama forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: Indian crafts have long suffered exploitation in global markets, often because India itself fails to adequately safeguard its cultural and intellectual property. Kolhapuris are only the latest example of a deeper pattern.
Geographical Indications: Promise and Pitfalls
To understand why this matters, we must revisit what Geographical Indications (GIs) are. As a form of intellectual property, a GI identifies goods that originate from a specific place and possess qualities, reputation, or characteristics essentially linked to that origin. Think of Scotch whisky, Champagne, or Darjeeling Tea — the value of the product is intimately tied to its roots. India, under the TRIPS Agreement and its Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act of 1999, has registered more than 650 GI-tagged goods, from Chanderi sarees to Madhubani paintings and Pashmina shawls.
Kolhapuri chappals, similarly, are part of this growing family of GI products. However, despite the protective framework, GI rights are territorial. That means their enforceability is limited largely to India unless brands proactively register them overseas. There is no “automatic international GI” that shields a product worldwide. Hence, when Prada drew from the Kolhapuri design, there was no immediate legal deterrent preventing them from reinterpreting it for global sale. Even the GI registration in India could not automatically block this.
Worse, India’s GI laws are weak. The system lacks proper enforceability, transparency, fairness, and accountability. In comparison, look at how Chile protects its wines, or how France rigorously defends Champagne. India’s famed Darjeeling Tea, turmeric, basmati rice, or Alphonso mangoes have all faced dilution of brand value thanks to weak marketing, ambiguous drafting, and large-scale adulteration.
The problem is compounded by India’s broader intellectual property deficit: between 1990 and 2024, India paid a net $90 billion in royalties and IP fees to the world, while earning only $11 billion. It is an enormous imbalance that shows how poorly India monetises its cultural knowledge and heritage. Other examples prove the point: patents on Basmati rice in the US in the 1990s, turmeric’s wound-healing properties in 1995, and neem-based antifungal formulations in 2000 were all contested only after the patents had already been granted abroad.
One powerful suggestion is to expand India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, which preserves folk knowledge, to cover wider local craft expressions. That way, brands and designers could more easily check a global, open database to identify and contact rightful owner communities before launching “inspired” collections. This could reduce the risk of inadvertent infringement while encouraging partnerships that share profits and creative credit.
India must also learn from global best practices. Italian houses like Fendi or Bulgari, for example, actively invest in restoring Roman monuments, acknowledging their debt to Italy’s cultural legacy. Similarly, Dior has engaged local craftspeople, not just in India but also in Mexico, empowering them to co-create and share in the proceeds. Such models could transform the Kolhapuri story from a one-off controversy to a lasting framework for dignity, development, and cultural continuity.
Inspiration, Appropriation, and the Fine Line
Prada’s Kolhapuri moment is hardly unique in the wider story of global fashion. Cultural appropriation — or what some call cultural “borrowing” — has been an incendiary debate for decades. From Yves Saint Laurent’s “Opium” collection to John Galliano’s “Diorientalism” line, top Western designers have long drawn on Asian, African, and Indigenous motifs to fuel their creative visions. Sometimes, this is framed as homage — a celebration of a rich heritage. At other times, it feels like an opportunistic land-grab, taking a symbol of local pride, rebranding it with a new price tag, and offering nothing back to the community of origin.
There are grey areas too. Take Japanese brand Puebco, which has been selling jute shopping bags from Jodhpur’s local snack brands as trendy Japanese souvenirs for years, with no royalties to the original Indian makers. Or fashion rental start-up Bipty, which described a traditional dupatta as a Scandinavian scarf, prompting a social media storm.
Such practices rest on global power imbalances. Indian craftspersons typically lack strong legal protection or marketing muscle, while Western brands wield sophisticated PR networks and vast consumer reach. As a result, even unintentional copying can do real damage by drowning out authentic voices.
At the same time, one must ask: Is there no place for inspiration? Cross-cultural exchange has historically driven creativity. From ancient trade routes to the globalised internet era, ideas have always travelled. The real question is whether inspiration goes hand in hand with credit, consent, and compensation.
For Kolhapuris, that means the conversation cannot stop at a social media apology. Prada or any other house that reimagines Indian crafts should meaningfully invest in their makers. This includes revenue sharing, co-design opportunities, and joint branding, so that Kolhapuri artisans do not remain footnotes to their own story.
At a deeper level, India must change its mindset. Often, the country fails to prize its heritage until a global brand “validates” it. The sad irony is that we celebrate our crafts only after the West notices them. As the documents note, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali was barely noticed in India until it won at Cannes in 1956; Maheshwar weaves were revived only by American and British patrons; and the FabIndia revolution had to be sparked by John Bissell. That cycle of self-neglect must break.
Towards a Fairer Fashion Future
The Kolhapuri episode should become a turning point. If India truly wants to protect its artisans, it must do more than protest appropriation. It must build a world-class intellectual property enforcement regime that defends local crafts proactively. It must develop digital libraries, legal toolkits, and public–private partnerships that help artisans protect, market, and adapt their skills to global tastes.
Additionally, Indian designers and large retail groups must step up. Dior, Gucci, and Loewe have all demonstrated how to work with indigenous artisans to co-create high fashion that respects its roots while appealing to modern audiences. Why cannot India’s top design houses do the same with Kolhapuri chappals, kantha embroidery, or Ajrakh block prints? This would help the local communities to earn more, adapt creatively, and protect their culture from extinction or exploitation.
On a societal level, we must also cultivate pride in our traditional crafts, not because a Western influencer endorsed them, but because they are part of our living history. If we prize them, invest in them, and make them relevant for the next generation, we will stand a far better chance of resisting cultural misappropriation in the first place. As the authors of the two documents argue, inspiration is inevitable — and even beautiful — if it is done ethically, transparently, and with a spirit of fair sharing.
Perhaps the ultimate lesson of the Prada–Kolhapuri debate is that the devil no longer wears Prada alone. India must decide whether it wants to let its heritage be used as a convenient global trend or transform it into a confident, collaborative brand that commands respect and reward. That journey will not be easy, but it is essential if the Kolhapuri chappal — or any other craft from the subcontinent — is to walk proudly into the future.
