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Introduction
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In June 2025, Italian luxury house Prada presented its Spring/Summer 2026 menswear collection at Milan Fashion Week. Among the pieces on the runway were open-toe leather sandals featuring a distinctive toe-loop construction and braided T-strap design. Kolhapuri chappal artisans, Indian commentators, and social media users in India recognised the silhouette immediately. The design was not Prada's. It had been worn by communities across Maharashtra and Karnataka for centuries. It held a Geographical Indication tag registered in India since 2018. And Prada had priced these sandals at approximately Rs. 1.2 lakh per pair, with no acknowledgment of origin, no credit to the artisans, and no compensation to the communities whose heritage had made the design recognisable in the first place.
The backlash was immediate and widespread. A Public Interest Litigation was filed before the Bombay High Court seeking a restraint order against Prada, compensation for artisans, and a public apology. The PIL argued that Prada's designs were identical to the GI-protected Kolhapuri chappal. Under pressure, Prada eventually acknowledged the Indian inspiration behind its collection. In December 2025, at the Italy-India Business Forum in Mumbai, Prada signed a Memorandum of Understanding with LIDCOM and LIDKAR, the Maharashtra and Karnataka state corporations that hold the Kolhapuri Chappal GI. A relaunched collection followed in April 2026, this time manufactured by artisans from the very districts tied to the craft.
The public narrative largely read this as a resolution. It was not. The legal problem that the Prada controversy exposed has not been resolved. The MoU did not change the GI framework. The relaunch did not make Prada an authorised GI user. And the design of the Kolhapuri chappal remains as unprotected from appropriation today as it was before a single photograph from Milan made its way onto Indian newsfeeds.
The post examines what the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 actually protects, where its protection runs out, and why the Prada case is less an anomaly than a preview of a structural problem in India's GI framework.
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Issue
The central question the Prada controversy forces is "Does a GI tag protect the design, construction, and aesthetic of a product, or only its name?"
The answer, under Indian law, is that a GI tag protects the name. A party that copies the look, technique, and construction of a GI-tagged product without ever using the GI name commits no infringement. Whether that is the right answer is a separate question. For now, it is the legal one.
What the GI Act Actually Protects
The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 operates through a two-tier system of registration. The registered proprietor is the association, authority, or body representing the producers of the GI-tagged goods. Authorised users are the actual producers who register under the GI and receive the right to use the indication commercially.
For Kolhapuri chappals, LIDCOM (Sant Rohidas Leather Industries and Charmakar Development Corporation Limited) and LIDKAR (Dr. Babu Jagjivan Ram Leather Industries Development Corporation Limited) hold the GI as registered proprietors. Over 900 authorised users are registered under this GI, i.e., artisans and producers from the Solapur, Sangli, Kolhapur, and Satara districts of Maharashtra and the Dharwad, Belgaum, Bagalkot, and Bijapur districts of Karnataka, producing footwear using bag-tanned or vegetable-dyed leather with the traditional toe-loop construction.
Section 22 of the GI Act speaks about infringement of GI. A person who is not an authorised user of a registered GI infringes it by using the indication in a manner that misleads consumers as to the geographical origin of the goods, or by using it in a manner that constitutes unfair competition including passing off in respect of the registered GI.
The operative phrase is "uses the indication." Infringement requires use of the name, the sign, the designation of GI in connection with goods in a way that creates a false geographical impression. It does not capture the copying of the product's physical form, design, or construction technique. The Act protects the origin identifier. It does not protect the product's design as such.
Why Prada Did Not Technically Infringe
Applying Section 22 of the GI Act to Prada's Spring/Summer 2026 collection, the conclusion is that no actionable GI infringement occurred.
Prada did not use the name "Kolhapuri Chappal" or any confusingly similar designation in the presentation of its collection. Its products were presented under the Prada brand, without any reference to Kolhapur, to Maharashtra, or to the geographical indication. There was no attempt to pass off the footwear as originating from the Kolhapuri producing communities. Consumers purchasing the Prada sandals at Rs. 1.2 lakh were not, by any reasonable standard, confused into believing they were buying GI-certified Kolhapuri chappals. The class of consumer, the channel of purchase, and the price point are categorically different.
On the question of passing off, the Calcutta High Court in Tea Board, India v. ITC Ltd. held that passing off under the GI Act must be assessed according to the principles applicable in trademark law. Passing off requires a misrepresentation that damages the goodwill of the claimant, the consumers must be deceived into believing they are obtaining the claimant's goods. In the Prada situation, no such misrepresentation arose. Prada's sandals carried Prada's own mark. There was no false claim of origin. The misrepresentation that exists is moral and commercial, not legal in the sense that Section 22 captures.
The PIL filed before the Bombay High Court argued that the designs were identical to the GI-protected product. Factual identity of design, however, does not constitute GI infringement where the GI name itself has not been used. The GI Act does not protect design monopoly.
The Structural Gap
The reason Prada's conduct fell outside the GI Act's reach is not a drafting error. It is a deliberate structural feature of how the international GI framework is constructed, and of the choices India has made in implementing it.
Under Article 22 of the TRIPS Agreement, GIs are protected against use that misleads the public as to the geographical origin of goods. This is the general standard. The protection activates when a consumer is likely to be deceived as to origin.
Article 23 of TRIPS applies specifically to wines and spirits. It provides what commentators call "absolute protection", GIs for wines and spirits are protected even when their use would not mislead the public. The entire consumer confusion analysis drops away. If a product uses the designation "Scotch Whisky" for whisky not produced in Scotland, that is infringement regardless of whether any consumer was in fact confused. The Scotch Whisky Association dispute in India, where the Delhi High Court restrained use of the label "Scotch" for domestic whisky, illustrates how this higher standard operates.
Kolhapuri chappals are a handicraft product. They fall under the Article 22 general standard, not Article 23. For them, infringement requires consumer deception. A foreign brand can copy the design as long as it does not claim the name.
The Indian GI Act does contain a partial solution. Section 22(2) empowers the Central Government to specify goods that shall be entitled to the higher level of protection available under Article 23, protection without the requirement to show consumer misleading. This power has been exercised for wines and spirits. It has not been exercised for handicrafts, textiles, or any category of traditional Indian goods.
Beyond GI law, the other IP instruments fare no better. The Designs Act, 2000 protects new and original designs not previously published. The Kolhapuri chappal's distinctive construction is centuries old. It was not eligible for design registration before the GI tag existed, and remains ineligible now. The Patents Act requires novelty and industrial application and hence traditional artisanal techniques are not patentable inventions. There is no instrument in India's IP framework that protects the physical form of a traditional product as such, as opposed to the name that identifies its origin.
The gap that this creates is not abstract. Any traditional Indian product — a Warli painting's motif, a Bidriware inlay pattern, a Kalamkari print style — can be reproduced and sold globally under a foreign brand name without constituting infringement of the GI tag those products carry. The GI protects the name. The design is in the public domain.
What the MoU and Relaunch Actually Mean
Prada's response to the public backlash followed a recognisable arc. Social media pressure produced an acknowledgment of inspiration. The acknowledgment was followed by an institutional engagement via MoU with LIDCOM and LIDKAR in December 2025. The MoU produced a relaunched collection in April 2026, with manufacturing moved to artisans in Maharashtra and Karnataka, and a stated commitment to traditional techniques. This is a commercially and ethically better outcome than the original release.
Prada's relaunched sandals are manufactured in the right geography, by artisans from the right communities, using traditional techniques. But Prada is not a registered proprietor under the GI Act. It is not an authorised user. Its product does not originate from the production system that the GI is designed to protect and certify. Under the GI Act, a "Kolhapuri Chappal" is a product produced by an authorised user, using specified traditional methods, within the designated districts. Prada's sandal, even when made by Kolhapuri artisans under Prada's direction, is a Prada product with a GI-linked supply chain. It is not, and cannot be, a certified Kolhapuri Chappal unless Prada becomes an authorised user, which would require registration under Section 17 of the GI Act and compliance with the production specifications that define the GI.
This matters for a practical reason. Prada's relaunch, priced at 750 euros per pair, positions the product in a market segment the artisan community cannot access. The artisans who manufacture the footwear earn artisan wages. The commercial premium and the Prada margin flows to Milan. The MoU creates an economic relationship between Prada and the artisan communities, but it does not alter the fundamental structure that the GI-linked community provides the labour and technique, and the foreign brand captures the brand value.
What This Means for India's GI Space
India has over 800 registered GIs. The concentration in Telangana and neighbouring states includes products such as Hyderabadi Haleem, Nirmal Paintings, Bidriware, and Gadwal Sarees. Each of these products has a distinctive visual or material character that is immediately identifiable to a discerning observer. Each of them is as legally exposed as the Kolhapuri chappal was in June 2025.
The Prada case is not exceptional. It is an illustration of what is possible within the current legal framework, by any foreign brand with the resources to absorb reputational risk. Additionally, two reform levers exist, and neither has been activated.
The first is Section 22(2) of the GI Act. The Central Government has the statutory power to extend Article 23-style absolute protection to categories of Indian goods beyond wines and spirits. Extending that protection to notified handicraft GIs would mean that using a GI in any context, whether misleading or not, constitutes infringement. This would not stop design copying as such, but it would prevent a foreign brand from even using the name in promotional materials or acknowledging "Kolhapuri inspiration" in press releases without authorisation.
The second is a long-discussed Traditional Cultural Expressions framework. The WIPO Intergovernmental Committee has worked on TCE protection for over two decades. The 2024 WIPO Treaty on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge was a step in one direction, but it did not address TCEs. A domestic TCE instrument protecting the design vocabulary of traditional Indian crafts independently of their GI registration would reach what the GI Act cannot.
Also read: Landmark case on Standard Essential Patents in India
Conclusion
The Prada-Kolhapuri problem is a clean illustration of something. Having a GI tag does not mean a traditional product's design is protected from appropriation. The tag protects the name and the origin claim. It does not protect the design, the technique, or the visual identity that makes the product what it is.
Something that intrigues me is that the legal outcome was settled well before the PIL was decided, well before the MoU was signed, and well before the relaunch made its way onto Esquire India. Prada's lawyers would have advised in July 2025 that no GI infringement had occurred. The public pressure, the institutional response, and the commercial repositioning that followed were not compelled by law. They were compelled by reputational risk and market dynamics in India, a market Prada has no interest in alienating.
That is a real enforcement mechanism. It is not a substitute for one. A regime in which traditional Indian craft communities must depend on social media pressure to secure acknowledgment, and in which a foreign brand's acknowledgment is voluntary and commercially calculated, is not a protective regime. It is surely an exposure.
Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified legal professional for advice specific to their circumstances.
Must read: History of Copyright law in India
~ Adv. Koushik Chittella
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Disclaimer: None of the contents of this post constitute legal advice.