Prada, the well-known Italian luxury couture label, recently made headlines for featuring footwear strikingly similar to traditional Indian sandals known as Kolhapuris chappals. The sandals were showcased at the Paris Men's Fashion Week 2025. It sparked heated debate about cultural appropriation. The eye-wateringly high price of these Prada Kolhapuri 'lookalikes' (around Rs 1.2 lakh) raised many eyebrows. Some days later, in an exclusive statement to NDTV, Prada acknowledged that its sandals had been inspired by traditional footwear made in specific districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Nevertheless, discussions around the controversy have continued. Popular Indian dairy brand Amul just released a special topical about the same.
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Amul often offers commentary on trending topics and issues of public concern through its illustrations. As usual, it does so with some wit, humour and/or wordplay. The Prada-Kolhapuri topical is no different. One half of the topical shows someone, probably a model, wearing Kolhapuris. The other part of the illustration depicts an Indian man attired in a turban holding up the iconic sandal, which has a distinctive shape. He is seen pointing to it with his other hand. "Kolhapoori tarah se copy hai," reads the text on top of the topical. This contains wordplay, since "Poori tarah se copy hai" translates to "It's a complete copy." The text at the bottom declares, "Amul. The original taste." The caption reads, "#Amul Topical: Prada accused of copying Indian footwear!"
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Before this, Amul had shared a topical for another kind of controversy taking the world by storm. It released an illustration about the feud between US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. "What goes up, Musk come down," read the punny text on top. Click here to read the full story.