The label wears Prada: How global deals can galvanise India's handicraft

The deal between Prada, the 112-year-old Italian luxury fashion house, and makers of Kolhapuri chappals, the leather slip-on footwear that dates back to the 12th century, offers a useful template of upscale collaboration between India’s vibrantly creative but resource-poor handicraft sector and powerful global brands with capital and marketing outreach. The deal was reached after Prada was accused of intellectual property (IP) violations for retailing footwear resembling Kohlapuris without acknowledging the design’s Indian roots. The problem was magnified by the fact that Kohlapuri footwear received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2019. Now, Prada has said it will make 2,000 pairs of sandals in Maharashtra and Karnataka under a deal signed with two state entities, combining Prada’s advanced manufacturing technology with traditional designs and know-how. In addition, some 200 Kohlapuri artisans will be given training in Italy. The limited-edition footwear is set to hit the store in February and will retail at $930 a pair, a steep price even by European standards.

 

No doubt, the collaborative nature of the deal was driven primarily by Prada’s wish to avoid the reputational damage caused by a potentially long-drawn IP controversy. But optics aside, similar deals between handicraft-promotion institutions of states and the Centre, on one side, and global brands, on the other, could galvanise a sector that has been languishing for want of a viable business framework. Millions of artisans in India mostly work in rural and semi-urban sectors. Despite the sheer variety of products spanning the subcontinent — Tanjore brasswork and Bidri work in the south, Warli painting in Maharashtra, Pattachitra or Madhubani paintings in the east, or Kashmiri embroidery in the north — artisans mostly depend on price-conscious domestic retailers, designers, and non-government organisations as marketing outlets. Little of this translates into sustainable livelihoods for artisans. In recent years, global giants such as Hermes, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci have begun collaborating with local artisans to add ethnic chic to their brands. Such tieups are mutually beneficial. They enable big fashion houses to enhance their social credibility since the manufacture of such handicrafts has a low carbon footprint. Artisans gain useful know-how in making properly finished products for more sophisticated markets and apply their ingenuity to newer products. Global brands can also enable local artisans to surmount tariff and non-tariff barriers, which are rising around the world.

 

As the Prada-Kolhapuri deal demonstrated, IP protection lies at the core of any dynamic collaborative arrangement between domestic artisans and global marketers. Over the past few decades, the government has worked on obtaining GI certification for hundreds of handicrafts, though these represent a fraction of India’s artisanal riches. But the protections such certification accords are somewhat nebulous. The problem lies in the fact that GI law in India restricts the misuse of names and labels but does not prevent aesthetics or visual styles from being copied. Prada, thus, could have claimed non-infringement with impunity because it did not use the label “Kohlapuri chappals” on the product that closely resembled the popular Indian footwear. In this context, the legal fraternity has been arguing for a more expansive IP protection framework to prevent the appropriation of aesthetic and cultural values. L’affaire Prada offers a good opportunity to do so.