Kalapuri answers Prada with a book handmade by its Kolhapuri artisans — Black Elephant

In 2025, Prada's Milan Fashion Show featured sandals strikingly similar to the Kolhapuri chappal — the leather footwear artisans in Kolhapur, India, have handcrafted for around a thousand years — without crediting its origins or makers. The resemblance sparked outrage in India, where designers again saw a global fashion house celebrate a local craft while the artisans behind it stayed unnamed.

Kalapuri, a collective of GI-tagged artisans, chose a different response, developed with VML India: not protest, but a gift. Its artisans handcrafted The Kolhapuri, a book made the way their sandals are, carrying elements of Kolhapur itself — pigments drawn from the colour of local soil, photographs of the real makers — and chronicling the craft's thousand-year journey, its artisan families and the techniques that keep it alive. Every GI-tagged artisan working with Kalapuri is credited inside.

Released at the Next Billion Forum 2025, the book was sent to Prada's designers as an invitation to revisit Kolhapur, and it doubled as a permanent record of the craft. The visibility translated into demand: Kalapuri recorded a 44% increase in active users, a 48% rise in new users and twice as many direct brand searches, with authenticity-related queries surging in metro markets. The work won the Kyoorius Black Elephant for Best of Show and two Golds at the 2026 Abbys, even though Prada's design team never replied directly — the gesture stood on its own.