When was the last time Kolhapuri chappals were seen in fashionable or upper-middle-class circles? Once the staple of college-goers and “jholawala" activists along with handloom kurtas, these handmade leather chappals from Maharashtra had become so typecast in the last decades of the 20th century that the new, 21st-century India did not regard them as cool anymore. They would all prefer those hip German cork sandals with a long name, or at least their knock-offs….

But Prada’s cultural appropriation of the Kolhapuri chappal has breathed new life into this artisanal footwear that had been beaten back by the avalanche of mass-produced, cheaper, or even slicker chappals, mostly made in factories. Even if much of India remains devoted to synthetic footwear, when one of the world’s most coveted brands found Kolhapuris worthy of the ramp at Milan Fashion Week, could India’s well-heeled fashionistas afford to ignore them now?

The decline in popularity of Kolhapuris may be a consequence of the explosion of choice in the market for footwear after liberalisation, especially in terms of design and affordability. Being handmade by a relatively small community of traditional artisans, Kolhapuris cannot obviously compete with the economies of scale and R&D budgets of big retail brands. Nor can they change designs in line with the latest international fashion trends, which now reach India in real time.

So, today’s globalised Indians cannot escape responsibility for the Kolhapuris’ gradual decline as a footwear option, particularly among the segments that can pay more but demand trendiness. Many rich........

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