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I. Introduction

The intersection of fashion and cultural heritage has emerged as a recurring site of legal and ethical contestation. Every season, the global fashion industry produces garments and accessories that draw inspiration, from traditional craft and cultures, of communities across the world. India, with its vast and diverse tradition of handcrafted textiles, footwear, jewellery, and embroidery, is a particularly frequent source of such aesthetic borrowing. Yet the communities and artisans who have developed, preserved, and transmitted these traditions over generations frequently receive neither attribution nor economic benefit.

The problem is not merely one of corporate ethics but reflects a deeper philosophical incompatibility between traditional knowledge and the architecture of contemporary intellectual property law—both internationally and in its domestic Indian laws—are structured around a set of assumptions ill-suited to the protection of collective, evolving, and historically deep cultural expressions. The law mainly protects individual authorship, fixed works, and industrial novelty. Traditional knowledge, by contrast, is characteristically collective, intergenerational, and subject to continuous organic development.

The Prada–Kolhapuri chappal controversy of 2024 provides an illustration of these structural tensions and serves as the primary case study for this analysis. Following an examination of that case, this article systematically evaluates the relevant provisions of India’s copyright, design, trademark, and geographical indication law, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) and the Traditional Knowledge Protection Bill, 2022 assessing each framework’s capacity—and inherent limitations—in protecting traditional cultural expressions.

II. Background: Cultural Appropriation and the Fashion Industry

Cultural appropriation—defined as the adoption of elements from one culture by members of another, particularly where a power differential exists between the cultures concerned—this has become an increasingly prominent subject of academic, legal, and public discourse. Within the fashion industry, this phenomenon typically involves the incorporation of traditional motifs, designs, garments, or craft techniques into commercial collections, often without acknowledgment of the originating community and often at a price point beyond the reach of those communities.

The Prada–Kolhapuri case is representative of a broader pattern. Several major international fashion brands have engaged with Indian cultural elements in comparable ways. Gucci’s Fall collection featured mirror-work embroidery reminiscent of traditional Indian craft techniques; Louis Vuitton introduced designs reflecting auto-rickshaw aesthetic motifs; and Zara faced criticism for marketing garments resembling the traditional Indian lungi under alternative names. Traditional jewellery like jhumkas, have similarly been reinterpreted by international fashion houses, while the dupatta—a traditional draped textile—has been rebranded in Western markets as a Scandinavian-style wrap. Accessories such as the ghungroo, an instrument of profound significance in Indian Classical dance traditions, have also been commercialised internationally without attribution. The above examples collectively show a structural pattern of extraction rather than isolated instances of oversight.

Luxury brands command global retail networks, substantial marketing budgets, and the capacity to assign significant commercial value to designs through branding and prestige. Traditional artisan communities, by contrast, often operate at subsistence or near-subsistence levels. The economic gap is not merely incidental to the phenomenon; it is constitutive of it. Where traditional designs remain unregistered and reside in the public domain, the defence of “inspiration” becomes legally available and commercially convenient.

III. Case Study: The Prada–Kolhapuri Controversy

A. Factual Background

The Kolhapuri chappal is a handcrafted leather open-toe sandal with origins traceable to at least the twelfth century CE, produced in the Kolhapur and Sangli districts of Maharashtra. The design is characterised by a T-strap construction, braided leather detailing, a distinctive toe-ring, and a natural tan colour palette. Thousands of artisans continue to produce Kolhapuri chappals using traditional techniques, and the design is the subject of a registered Geographical Indication under India’s GI Act.

In 2024, Prada released a men’s open-toe sandal as part of its Milan Fashion Week collection. The design showed substantial similarity to the Kolhapuri chappal, incorporating an analogous T-strap architecture, braided leather, a toe-ring feature, and a comparable colour palette. The initial marketing materials including the brand’s website, physical boutique, and product descriptions had no reference to India, Kolhapur, or the artisan communities. The product was marketed under the designation “toe-ring sandal.”

B. Corporate Response and Legal Proceedings

The launch prompted immediate and widespread criticism on social media platforms, with commentators drawing attention to the formal similarities between the Prada design and the Kolhapuri chappal and questioning the absence of attribution. Critics also noted the apparent contradiction between Prada’s robust enforcement of its own intellectual property rights and its failure to acknowledge the design heritage from which the product derived.

In response to the public controversy, Prada issued a formal letter to the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, acknowledging that the sandals were “inspired” by traditional Indian handcrafted footwear with a centuries-old heritage. The characterisation of the relationship as one of “inspiration” warrants scrutiny. As a legal and semantic matter, the term functions to acknowledge aesthetic provenance while stopping short of any admission that could give rise to liability. The acknowledgment was accompanied by neither a commitment to incorporate attribution into marketing materials nor any proposal for financial compensation or royalty-sharing with artisan communities.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was subsequently filed before the Bombay High Court, seeking damages and a court-supervised collaboration arrangement. The PIL was dismissed on the ground of locus standi: the Court held that only registered proprietors or authorised users of the Kolhapuri GI tag had the legal standing to initiate infringement proceedings and no further litigation was pursued. Subsequently, Prada entered into a limited commercial collaboration with Indian artisans, resulting in a limited-edition collection crafted in India.

C. Significance of the Case

While the eventual collaboration may be viewed as a partial remedial outcome, the case illuminates several structural inadequacies in India’s legal framework. The GI system protected the geographical name but not the underlying design or craft knowledge. The PIL mechanism was available in principle but procedurally inaccessible to the communities directly affected. The outcome—an informal commercial arrangement rather than any legally enforceable remedy—was contingent on reputational pressure rather than legal obligation. As the subsequent analysis will demonstrate, these are not accidental gaps but systemic features of intellectual property frameworks that were not designed with traditional knowledge in mind.

IV. Legal Framework: Existing Protections and Their Limitations

A. The Copyright Act, 1957

Copyright protection in India is governed by the Copyright Act, 1957. As per section 22 the Act protects original literary, artistic, and other creative works, and subsists for the lifetime of the author plus sixty years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year of the author’s death. This framework rests on the identification of an individual or identifiable group of authors who create an original work and fix it in a tangible medium.

Traditional art forms present fundamental difficulties under this model. Such works are typically the product of iterative development across multiple generations, making the identification of an individual author or a specific moment of creation structurally impossible. In the absence of an identifiable author, the foundational requirements of copyright protection cannot be satisfied.

Even if these threshold requirements could be satisfied in a particular case, the duration of copyright protection would be inadequate. Traditional crafts derive a significant portion of their cultural and commercial value from their historical depth and intergenerational continuity—attributes that necessarily extend well beyond the sixty-year post-mortem term. Once copyright expires, the work enters the public domain, which, under prevailing interpretations of international intellectual property law, makes it freely available for commercial exploitation.

A further structural limitation arises from Section 15 of the Copyright Act, which provides that where more than fifty articles have been produced, copyright protection cease to apply, and the work may fall instead within the scope of the Designs Act. This provision was designed to ensure that mass-produced industrial articles were governed by the shorter term of design protection rather than the extended duration of copyright. However, traditional crafts occupy an anomalous position in this binary framework: they are artistic works of significant cultural value that happen to be produced in volume by hand. The legislative distinction intended for industrial manufacturing thus operates, in practice, to reduce the protection available for traditional handicrafts.

B. The Designs Act, 2000

The Designs Act, 2000 protects the visual or aesthetic features of articles that are novel and original. Registration is available for a term of ten years, extendable by a further five years, yielding a maximum protection period of fifteen years. The Act imposes a requirement of absolute novelty: a design must not have been disclosed to the public, whether in India or elsewhere, prior to the date of filing.

Traditional designs are categorically unable to satisfy this requirement. The historical depth and widespread prior use of such designs—the very characteristics that constitute their cultural significance—are simultaneously disqualifying factors under the novelty test. The Act thus creates a paradox in which the cultural value of a traditional design and its legal protectability are inversely related.

A further concern arises from the interaction between the public-domain status of unregistered traditional designs and the novelty-based requirements of design law. A commercial actor may incorporate a traditional design, introduce superficial modifications—for example, adjusting the geometry of a strap, adding a proprietary fastening, or substituting contemporary materials—and present the resulting iteration as a novel design eligible for registration. Through this mechanism, entities may effectively get proprietary rights over derivatives of traditional designs, while the originating communities are still without legal recourse and may be excluded from the future development of their own craft traditions. This dynamic bears a structural resemblance to the concept of “evergreening” as discussed in pharmaceutical patent literature, though it has not yet been formally theorised in the context of design law.

Even setting aside the novelty obstacle, the maximum fifteen-year protection term under the Designs Act would be of limited utility for the protection of cultural expressions whose value is grounded in historical continuity extending over centuries.

C. The Trade Marks Act, 1999

The Trade Marks Act, 1999 as per section 2 defines a trademark as a mark capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of others. The primary function of trademark law is source identification: to enable consumers to identify the commercial origin of a product and to prevent confusion in the marketplace.

Section 9 of the Act sets out absolute grounds for refusal of registration, including marks that are devoid of distinctive character or that consist of indications designating the geographical origin or characteristics of goods.

The protective logic of trademark law is fundamentally misaligned with the nature of traditional cultural expressions. A traditional pattern or design cannot function as a trademark unless it serves exclusively to show that a product originates from a particular commercial enterprise. Traditional patterns are, by definition, shared cultural resources associated with communities rather than with individual commercial entities. Their cultural significance is independent of any commercial source-identification function. As a result, trademark law offers no meaningful mechanism for community-based protection of traditional designs.

D. The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999

The GI Act as per section 2 defines a geographical indication as one that identifies goods as originating from a territory where a given quality, reputation, or other characteristic is essentially attributable to the geographical origin. Section 21 grants registered proprietors and authorised users the exclusive right to seek relief in respect of infringement. Section 22 defines infringement as the use of a geographical indication in a manner that misleads the public as to the true place of origin of the goods.

The Prada–Kolhapuri case reveals a fundamental structural limitation of this framework. GI protection is directed at the geographical name rather than the aesthetic design, craft technique, or underlying cultural knowledge associated with the goods. Prada did not use the term “Kolhapuri” in its marketing materials. On a strict reading of the Act, no infringement of the registered GI may therefore have occurred, notwithstanding the substantial formal similarity between the design and the protected craft product.

Moreover, the PIL filed before the Bombay High Court was dismissed on locus standi grounds, as only registered proprietors or authorised users of the GI were found to have standing to pursue infringement claims. This procedural requirement operates to restrict access to legal remedies for the individual artisans and communities most directly affected by the appropriation.

GI protection thus serves an important but limited function. It may deter the unauthorised use of protected geographical names, but it does not prevent the extraction, adaptation, and commercial exploitation of the underlying cultural heritage, provided the protected name is not deployed.

V. Existing Traditional Knowledge Mechanisms

A. The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)

The TKDL, established in 2001 as a collaborative initiative of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Ministry of AYUSH, constitutes the most significant existing institutional mechanism for the protection of India’s traditional knowledge. The Library documents traditional knowledge previously recorded only in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and various regional languages, and translates it into major international languages, including English, German, French, Japanese, and Spanish.

The primary function of the TKDL is defensive: it establishes a repository of prior art accessible to patent examiners worldwide, enabling them to verify whether a claimed invention derives from pre-existing traditional knowledge. During the 1990s, several companies sought patents for traditional Indian medicinal formulations—most notably those involving neem and turmeric—by presenting them as novel inventions. The TKDL was designed to counter such claims by demonstrating prior art. Its coverage encompasses Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, and Yoga traditions.

However, the TKDL’s scope is confined to traditional medicinal and bio-genetic knowledge. There is no comparable government-backed repository for traditional textiles, embroidery patterns, footwear designs, musical instruments, or other fashion and craft-based heritage. As a consequence, while the TKDL provides meaningful protection against the patenting of traditional medicinal knowledge, it offers no defence against the commercial appropriation of traditional cultural designs by the fashion industry.

B. The Traditional Knowledge Protection Bill, 2022

The proposed Traditional Knowledge Protection Bill, 2022 represents the most significant recent legislative attempt to address the limitations of the existing framework. The Bill proposes the creation of a registry for traditional knowledge, recording the identity of custodian knowledge societies and descriptions of the traditional knowledge they hold (Section 36).

The most substantive and contested provision concerns ownership. Section 3 of the Bill provides that traditional knowledge originating within a State or Union Territory shall be deemed to be owned by the respective state government. This approach represents a significant departure from community ownership models and has attracted considerable scholarly criticism.

While Section 4 grants designated knowledge societies certain rights—including the right to authorise or deny access and to participate in benefit-sharing arrangements—ultimate ownership is vested in the state. This structure creates a significant governance challenge: an artisan wishing to license a traditional design to a commercial partner would, under the proposed framework, need to navigate an administrative process involving approval by the state, introducing procedural complexity that may, in practice, be more burdensome than empowering for the communities concerned.

The Bill also does not adequately account for the dynamic nature of traditional knowledge. Traditional crafts are not static artefacts; they evolve continuously as artisans respond to changing materials, techniques, markets, and social contexts. A legislative framework that treats traditional knowledge as a fixed category amenable to state ownership and registry documentation may fail to capture this living, evolving dimension.

A further conceptual deficiency concerns the Bill’s omission of the concept of “community” from the definition of a knowledge society. Given that traditional knowledge is characteristically created, preserved, and transmitted by communities rather than by formally constituted societies, this omission may result in a framework that does not reflect the actual social organisation of traditional knowledge production.

The Bill permits non-commercial use of traditional knowledge, including research and educational display, provided appropriate attribution is given. While this may encourage documentation and scholarship, it reflects a broader tendency to place traditional knowledge under state administration rather than to recognise communities as the primary locus of ownership and control.

VII. Discussion: Towards a More Effective Framework

A. The Convention on Biological Diversity Model

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and India’s domestic implementation through the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 provide a partial precedent for a framework based on prior informed consent and benefit-sharing. Under this model, entities seeking to utilise biological resources and associated traditional knowledge are required to disclose the source, obtain the prior informed consent of the relevant community, and negotiate a benefit-sharing arrangement.

An analogous framework applied to traditional cultural expressions in the fashion industry would require brands wishing to incorporate traditional designs to identify the relevant community, seek consent, and enter into a legally binding benefit-sharing agreement. This would not prohibit cultural exchange or creative inspiration but would establish procedural safeguards ensuring that communities retain agency over the commercial use of their heritage and receive equitable compensation.

B. Comparative Approaches: New Zealand

Comparative analysis points to a clear pattern: legal frameworks built around community ownership tend to protect traditional cultural expressions far more effectively. New Zealand offers the most instructive example. Driven in large part by the Wai 262 claim before the Waitangi Tribunal, the country has steadily woven Māori concepts of guardianship and cultural stewardship into its intellectual property regime. One concrete outcome is the Māori Trade Marks Advisory Committee, which reviews trademark applications involving Māori words, symbols, or cultural elements and can recommend refusal where registration would be culturally offensive or inappropriate.

This approach reflects a fundamentally different conception of the relationship between intellectual property law and cultural heritage, one in which community consent and cultural integrity function as substantive criteria rather than as peripheral considerations.

C. Certification and Market-Based Mechanisms

In addition to legislative reform, complementary market-based mechanisms may contribute to more fair outcomes. A certification system analogous to Fair Trade or organic product labelling could enable consumers to identify products developed through genuine partnerships with artisan communities, with right attribution and benefit-sharing. Governments could reinforce such mechanisms through tax incentives, export benefits, or procurement preferences for brands that engage in documented, ethical collaborations.

Such certification would not substitute for legal protection but could create commercial incentives for compliance in advance of broader legislative reform, while also increasing consumer awareness of the provenance of traditional designs.

VIII. Challenges and Limitations

Any proposed reform faces significant practical and conceptual challenges. The identification of the relevant “community” for the purposes of consent and benefit-sharing is often complex, particularly where craft traditions span multiple regions, communities, or ethnic groups. Governance mechanisms within communities may themselves be contested. There is also a risk that benefit-sharing frameworks could create perverse incentives or enable the capture of traditional knowledge institutions by intermediaries.

International enforcement remains structurally difficult in the absence of a multilateral treaty specifically addressing traditional cultural expressions. Existing proposals within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore have not yet yielded a binding international instrument. Domestic reform in India, while necessary, may be insufficient on its own to address appropriation by foreign commercial actors.

Finally, any framework must accommodate the dynamic nature of traditional knowledge. Overly rigid definitions of protected knowledge could inhibit the organic evolution of craft traditions and constrain the ability of artisans themselves to adapt their practices to new materials, markets, and contexts.

IX. Conclusion

This article has demonstrated that India’s existing intellectual property framework is structurally ill-suited to the protection of traditional cultural expressions in the fashion industry. Copyright law presupposes individual authorship and finite duration; design law rewards novelty; trademark law identifies commercial sources; and geographical indication law protects geographical names while leaving the underlying designs and knowledge largely unprotected. The TKDL, while effective in its specific domain, does not extend to fashion and craft heritage. The proposed Traditional Knowledge Protection Bill, 2022, though potentially significant, vests ownership in the state rather than in communities and inadequately accounts for the living, evolving nature of traditional knowledge.

The Prada–Kolhapuri controversy highlights both the consequences of these gaps and the inadequacy of informal reputational pressure as a substitute for legally enforceable rights. While the eventual commercial collaboration may be regarded as a partial positive outcome, it was contingent on the accident of social media attention rather than on any systematic legal protection.

Effective reform requires a dedicated legal framework grounded in three principles: community ownership, prior informed consent, and equitable benefit-sharing. Such a framework would recognise traditional knowledge as a form of intellectual and cultural property belonging to the communities that created and sustain it, rather than treating it as a public domain resource freely available for commercial exploitation. Drawing on models such as the CBD’s access and benefit-sharing regime and New Zealand’s community-centred intellectual property reforms, India has the opportunity to develop an approach that is both practically workable and philosophically coherent.

The broader challenge is not merely how to protect a specific invention or creator, but how to preserve centuries of collective memory, creativity, and craftsmanship within a legal system that was not designed with these values in mind. If legal frameworks continue to overlook the communities who sustain living craft traditions, they risk not only perpetuating economic injustice but also eroding the cultural heritage that gives these traditions their enduring significance.

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