“What is this? Kolhapuri chappals? You want an injunction in a PIL?” asked one of the judges, grilling advocate Ganesh Hingmire, who had filed the petition.
The case had been filed after Italian luxury fashion house Prada had showcased a pair of “toe-ring” sandals on a Milanese runway in its Men’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection last month. At the receiving end was an array of respondents: Prada S.p.A; its India arm; the Maharashtra government’s department for social justice; and Lidcom, a public sector undertaking to promote the state’s leather industry and support its artisans.
Hingmire, a Pune-based expert on geographical indicators and intellectual property rights, wanted the high court to stop the sale of Kolhapuri sandals abroad. He also wanted an apology from Prada for violating the geographical indication tag protecting the chappals.
Hingmire, along with a battery of lawyers, pointed to the history of western brands exploiting Indian heritage. “The community is suffering from this cultural appropriation,” he argued. “These foreign companies like Prada will just continue (this cultural appropriation) with a word of appreciation.”
Across from Hingmire was celebrated senior advocate Ravi Kadam, who was representing Prada. The latter’s defence was short and biting; he asked why Hingmire had filed a PIL at all, given that he did not own the rights of the Kolhapuri chappal. Besides, he said, Prada had never claimed the shoes on its runway were Kolhapuris.
After some back-and-forth between the lawyers and the judges, the court dismissed the case, saying that there were clear legal mechanisms to settle geographical indication tag infringements, and that a PIL wasn’t needed to protect the artisans of Kolhapur.
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An artisan adds finishing touches to a pair of Kolhapuri chappals in Chappal Gully. (Devina Sengupta/Mint)
Needless to say, the ruling did not leave Hingmire feeling ecstatic. “Will assess and may go to SC (Supreme Court),” he texted one of the writers of this story. “I have tried my level best in the interest of our nation. Our intention is pure and clean.”
The ruling also caused some disappointment 400 km away, in Kolhapur, the birthplace of the eponymous sandals. The court case and the interest it had aroused in the district’s most famous export, had given the 100,000-strong community engaged in the business of making the slippers there hope that their flagging business would get a shot in the arm.
Kolhapuri chappals are a miniscule part of the country’s total footwear exports. And, they’re declining. In 2024-25, India exported over ₹21,000 crore of footwear and related goods; of that, Kolhapuris made up just ₹1.3 crore.
Thanks to the catwalk in Milan and the court case in Mumbai, Kolhapuri chappals are now enjoying a rare moment of global glory. But, just how did these humble chappals become India’s most recognisable traditional footwear, and what is holding the trade back?
Mint visited Kolhapur and spoke to artisan families there, as well as designers in Mumbai, to piece together the story of the Kolhapuris.
Designer limelight
Most of India’s shoes, including Kolhapuri chappals, are sold in small, local shops even today. But, in the last decade, independent designer brands have begun to experiment with traditional Indian footwear and sell them at a mass-premium and higher prices.
Much of that action has happened in the business of juttis and mojris, close-toed flats native to Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat. Delhi-based Fizzy Goblet and Needledust are among India’s best known jutti brands. They posted annual revenue of ₹33.1 crore and ₹15.2 crore, respectively, in 2023-24, per research agency Tracxn.
Today, these brands and other mass-market labels, such as Bata and Metro, have begun selling ‘designer’ Kolhapuri chappals. But, there are few designers dedicated to working with Kolhapuri and similar ‘toe-ring’ chappals.
One such brand is by Mumbai-based designer Aprajita Toor, who started her studio in Chembur a decade ago, inspired by her mother’s penchant for the chappals.
“The Kolhapuri chappal is a liberating design,” she told Mint. “In an orthopaedic sense, it is an open shoe and not contained. If you think about it, the original chappal was so thoughtfully made. It is a visionary design,” says Toor.
Her eponymous label is best known for innovative versions of the sandals, including those with pencil and wedge heels, strong pastel contrasts, and contemporary patterns adorning the classic T-strap. Toor’s offerings are largely for the premium domestic consumer, with a basic pair starting at ₹4,500.
For designers, however, the biggest challenge in inventing new forms of Kolhapuri chappals is material. “The leather the artisans use is buff (buffalo) leather, which is not easy to work with,” Toor said. “It is also not easy to wear. But it is what defines these chappals.”
Toor has experimented with newer materials such as memory foam cushioning and softer Napa leather to make her shoes more comfortable.
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Shoes inspired by the classic Kolhapuri design on display in an upscale store at Bandra’s Linking Road market, Mumbai. (Soumya Gupta/Mint)
Another Mumbai-based shoe label, Tiesta, best-known for elaborate ‘bridal’ sneakers, also found a niche in innovative Kolhapuris. “Growing up, wearing heels was the standard (for women),” Janvi Jogatar, designer and co-founder of Tiesta, told Mint. “But Kolhapuris are not just fashion. The toe ring in the sandal separates the big toe from the rest of the foot, making it much more comfortable (than closed-toe shoes).” However, Jogatar ran into the same problem that her fellow designers did—the traditional Kolhapuri, although beautiful, is not always easy on the feet.
Jogatar launched Tiesta’s ‘Kolas’ collection in 2019, switching out the regular buff leather for a vegan alternative that is cheaper, easier to work with, and softer on the feet.
The company also added a small innovation: changeable T-straps with different designs so that customers could keep changing the look of their pair. Tiesta priced these at around ₹3,000 a pair for changeable flats and ₹6,500 for changeable heels, even adding a few ‘Baby Kolas’ for kids. They’re a fast mover, but haven’t beaten Tiesta’s signature bridal sneakers.
Despite their popularity across India, the market for Kolhapuri chappals has remained largely unorganized and outside of the purview of India’s biggest fashion designers. Those who do sell designer Kolhapuris often manufacture in Mumbai or elsewhere outside the Kolhapur and Belagavi districts. Two public sector undertakings—Lidcom in Maharashtra and Lidkar in Karnataka—were set up in the 1970s to train Kolhapuri chappal artisans and retail their products. Their financial filings are not publicly available on their websites; instead, visitors are greeted with placeholder text.
A community creation
At ease in his home in Kolhapur, Shashikant Tulsidas Vhatkar, 56, told Mint about how generations of his family and others in the district have dedicated themselves to the iconic chappals.
Making the Kolhapuri chappal is a community business, with each member of the family contributing to the end product. The women stitch thin strips of leather into the braid connecting the sandal’s T-strap to the toe ring. The men polish and shape the shoes from the leather hides.
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Bare sandal soles at a workshop in Kolhapur district’s Karlee village. The workshop owner displays a sample of the finished chappal on his mobile phone. (Devina Sengupta/Mint)
It’s how the craft has been kept alive by generations since medieval times, when the chappal is first said to have been created in the neighbouring districts of Kolhapur and Belagavi. Over time, locals developed variants of the chappals, each named after the village that designed them. By the 18th century, local satraps had taken to the Kolhapuri chappal, along with prominent rulers like Shahu Maharaj, and tanneries flourished in the area, boosting production.
For old timers such as Vhatkar, making Kolhapuris is an art, and even reverence—he refused to sit on the heaps of buffalo leather. “I cannot. This is our mother,” he said.
Among the prized leather hides is a six feet high, chrome-yellow piece that Vhatkar holds up in a dank, sweaty room. Traditionally, this buffalo hide is dyed with vegetable extracts.
Typically, the artisans of Kolhapur use all kinds of leather to make chappals across price points. But over time, they have turned to softer, lower quality leather to make footwear for the mass market. Chappals made from these cheaper materials retail for ₹300-400 while those made with traditional leather and stitching techniques start at ₹2,000-3,000 a pair.
Most of these artisans belong to a few castes, traditionally discriminated against in the social hierarchy. Apart from the burden of caste discrimination, they are also struggling with a ban on cow slaughter in Maharashtra. Without the traditional means of securing cow and buffalo hides, used by leather workers to make shoes and other goods for centuries, the cost of sourcing materials for Kolhapuri chappals has gone up. Apart from cheaper leather from Chennai and Kanpur, traditional Kolhapuri artisans are experimenting with artificial leather too.
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A pair of Kolhapuri chappals for children in the storage room of trader Shashikant Tulsidas Vhatkar’s home in Kolhapur city. (Devina Sengupta/Mint)
In a corner of his courtyard, Vhatkar also stores heaps of a thin leather parchment sourced all the way from Chennai. These are cheaper, and pale coloured, meant for the eminently wearable and affordable Kolhapuri chappals one finds street shopping in India. Usually, these are dyed chemically, and the bells and whistles of the Kolhapuri style are pasted on, rather than stitched.
Vhatkar alone buys 10-15 tonnes of leather from Chennai every month, and hands it over to shoemakers in his area. He invests ₹25 lakh in the business annually, and has a turnover of ₹1 crore. However, Vhatkar insists, it is the artisans who take home all the money and leave him with little.
Kolhapur’s shoemakers, however, say they earn just about ₹25,000 a month, on average. One family can produce about 100 pairs of cheap chappals that don’t require hand stitching in one week, but can make only 20 of the pricier variety in that time. This is a difficult trade to scale up, the artisans say.
A whiff of oxygen
Since news of the Milan catwalk controversy broke, Prada has become a buzzword all over Kolhapur. Sambhaji Shivaji Powar, a Kolhapuri chappal maker from Kale village near Kolhapur city, says the Italian brand has sparked a kind of renaissance for the traditional sandals.
“We got to know that Prada was using Kolhapuri shoes when everyone spoke about it in the market,” he told Mint. “Our customers come from all over the world but we never get the credit for it.” One such customer, for instance, found the shoes Powar’s wife Shobha makes on an Instagram page run by his son. He bought two pairs for ₹8,000, a handsome sum. But, the man later told Powar he was selling them to a customer in Australia. “He would have sold it for a higher price but the maker goes unnoticed,” he adds.
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Balkrishna Gavali, owner of Tip Top Footwear, a store in Chappal Gully. (Devina Sengupta/Mint)
Designer Toor also says she has international customers for her Kolhapuri inspired sandals, including buyers in Chile. But, she added, the controversy with Prada has had no impact on her sales. “I think the current rise in interest in Kolhapuri chappals is a fleeting trend,” she said. “For mass-priced brands, there may be a bump in sales.”
Some artisans in Kolhapur agree with Toor. “The hype is temporary and in a few days, everyone will forget,” 40-year-old Mahesh Suhas Kamble told Mint. He is part of the fourth generation in his family in the traditional trade.
Anurag Chandrakant Kokitkar, 33, also worries that the ‘Prada’ impact will fade away as just another hashtag. He is hoping that thanks to the fight with Prada, there will finally be a serious push to upgrade the chappal trade. In 2013, Kokitkar had set up a manufacturing unit called Paytaan (slang for Kolhapuri slipper), but shut it down during the pandemic.
Appropriation debate
Together, artisans and traders like Vhatkar make up a community of roughly 100,000 professionals living and working in the villages and towns of Kolhapur district.
This is the community that advocate Hingmire says needs to be helped, despite the protections that India’s geographical indication tag provides to the product. Legally, only a sandal made in the toe-ring style in the districts of Kolhapur (Maharashtra) and Belagavi (Karnataka) can be called ‘Kolhapuri chappals’. But, he told Mint, foreign brands routinely get away with appropriating India’s traditional handicrafts without so much as an acknowledgement, let alone compensation.
Some are now trying to address these allegations of cultural appropriation. Last week, employees of Prada S.p.A visited Mumbai and Kolhapur to meet artisans and leaders of the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture (MCCIA). They promised to work with the Kolhapuri artisans on future designs.
“We want to bring in a revenue sharing model, get them to purchase from our artists. Prada has added glamour to our work,” Lalit Gandhi, president of the MCCIA, told Mint. “We need to build on that.” Gandhi also said he is working with other Indian sourcing firms.
Among those interested in sourcing authentic Kolhapuris for markets abroad is Asmara Group, an Indian apparel multinational. Asmara wrote to the MCCIA evincing “interest” in the sandals. Among Asmara’s buyers are American retailers Urban Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Free People. Mint could not independently verify the claim.
Prada did not respond to Mint’s request for a comment, nor did Asmara Group.
There is scepticism regarding what Prada and other fashion powerhouses can really do for the Kolhapuri chappals. After all, homegrown designers and exporters, too, have had no lasting impact on the way the chappals are made and sold.
The Prada controversy has, however, reignited an old debate on what constitutes cultural appropriation. Some designers, such as Tiesta’s Jogatar, believe Prada missed an opportunity to work with local designers and artisans and lend credibility to its collection. Others, including Toor, disagree.
“Designers around the world have drawn inspiration from Indian art and handicrafts like ikat, kalamkari, and bandhani for years,” she said. “The idea of cultural appropriation or giving credit to someone is a very subjective issue. It is all about a brand’s ethos. But drawing inspiration is at the heart of design. At the end of the day, I am just happy that the rich tradition of the Kolhapuri chappal is on the global stage. That, too, with a big name like Prada.”
