A sandal on Prada's runway last year looked a great deal like something India had been making for generations. The answer, a year on, is a collection built in India and a plan to train the people who build it.
Prada showed a pair of flat leather sandals in Milan in June 2025. Toe-ring, woven strap, a low tooled sole. The shape read at once as the Kolhapuri chappal, worn across western India for centuries, and in India the resemblance was noticed straight away, along with the absence of any credit. Prada acknowledged the roots within days.
What has followed is more concrete than a statement. On 27 April 2026 the house announced a limited-edition collection of Kolhapuri-inspired sandals, made in India. The pieces are produced by artisans in Maharashtra and Karnataka, the two states where the chappal has been cut and stitched for generations.
Courtesy of Prada — The sandal with a cobbler's tools, made in Maharashtra and Karnataka
The makers
Prada developed the collection with LIDCOM and LIDKAR, the Maharashtra and Karnataka government bodies that safeguard the leather craft and the Kolhapuri name. The sandals hold to the traditional methods, the hand-stitching and the tooled leather, and carry Prada's materials and finishing. The insole is stamped with the Prada name where a maker's mark would usually sit.
The shape was never Prada's to invent. This time the credit is stitched into the sole.
The Splendid EditThe program
Alongside the collection, Prada has set up a training program for artisans in the districts where the chappal is made. The house is funding it in full, over three years, in six-month modules, reaching 180 craftspeople.
The teaching partners are Indian, the National Institute of Fashion Technology and the Karnataka Institute of Leather & Fashion Technology. The aim, as Prada frames it, is to strengthen design and technical skills, the kind of investment that outlasts a single drop.
The point
Luxury houses draw on craft traditions constantly and rarely name the source. The Kolhapuri episode pushed that habit into the open. Prada's response puts production and training in the place the design came from, which is a harder thing to do than a line in a show note.
The verdict
The collection is small and will sell out. The training runs for three years and reaches people whose names never appear on a runway. One of those two things is the reason this is worth watching.
The Splendid Edit on Prada Made in India, inspired by Kolhapuri Chappals, announced by Prada Group on 27 April 2026.
Photography courtesy of Prada — Prada Made in India, inspired by Kolhapuri Chappals