Italian luxury fashion label Prada has acknowledged that the sandals showcased at the Milan Fashion Week recently were inspired by ‘traditional Indian footwear’, following the controversy related to the brand failing to credit the footwear’s Indian origins.

Prada had referred to the sandals as just ‘leather footwear’, particularly when it had an open-toe braided design in strong resemblance to the traditional Kolhapuri sandals crafted in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Kolhapuri sandals were awarded the Geographical Indication (GI) status in 2019.

Prada said the company had always celebrated craftsmanship, heritage and design traditions, and that the brand was “in contact with the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture on this topic”. It all started when talk of the footwear design being commercialised came up. The controversy was further fueled as Prada had used the design without crediting the artisans behind the craft.

Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s head of Corporate Social Responsibility, said that the sandals were only “at an early stage of design”, and Prada was open to a “dialogue for meaningful exchange with local Indian artisans”. – editor@nrifocus.com