Prada’s Kolhapuri sandal copies show that law alone can’t protect India’s cultural capital

Earlier this month, Italian fashion house Prada sparked an uproar in India when its newest collection at the Milan Fashion Week featured open-toe leather sandals that strongly resembled the iconic Kolhapuri chappal.

Priced at Rs 1.2 lakh per pair, nearly 300 times their value in Kolhapur, these sandals were showcased by Prada without any mention of their cultural origins or the communities in the subcontinent that have sustained the industry around them.

Since 2019, the Kolhapuri chappal has had geographical indication status – meaning that it is protected by an intellectual property rights regime that acknowledges that goods originating from a specific region possess a reputation and distinctive qualities or characteristics inherently linked to that location.

A GI tag is a legal stamp that protects the cultural and economic identity of products from a certain place, such as champagne from France or Darjeeling tea from India.

The Prada incident put the focus on the limitations of India’s GI regime in enforcing the protection of its heritage when it was co-opted on the global stage.

For decades, India’s intellectual property trajectory in the cultural sector has been one of seeking recognition: mapping traditional knowledge systems, celebrating heritage crafts and filing for geographical indications with the hope that a legal tag would...

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