Hand-Stitched Kolhapuri Chappal

Details

A Kolhapuri chappal made inside the area the name legally belongs to. Kolhapuri Chappal is a registered geographical indication under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act 1999, in Class 25, footwear. The registration is held jointly by the Leather Industries Development Corporation of Maharashtra and the Karnataka Leather Industries Development Corporation, and it covers eight districts and no others: Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Solapur in Maharashtra, and Belagavi, Dharwad, Bagalkot and Vijayapura in Karnataka. Ours are made in Kolhapur and Athani, both inside that list. The fraud the name is sold against is not subtle. Moulded sandals in rexine and PU, pressed with a braid pattern and a printed grain, are made in Delhi, Agra and Bahadurgarh and sold across the country as Kolhapuris. They are not from the notified districts, they contain no leather, and under section 22 of the Act using the name on them is infringement rather than homage. The softer version of the same fraud is a real leather chappal, chrome tanned and machine stitched, made outside the eight districts and sold under the name because nobody checks. The second thing to check is the leather itself, because the trade grades it and the label hides the grade. Full-grain is the outer surface of the hide with its pores intact. Top-grain is that surface sanded off and refinished. Genuine leather, which reads like a guarantee and is not one, is a split from the lower layer with a grain embossed into it. Bonded leather is leather dust glued to a backing. The upper here is full-grain goat at 1.2 mm and the sole is full-grain buffalo shoulder, and both are stated because the word leather on its own says nothing.

• Made in Kolhapur and Athani, inside the eight GI districts
• Full-grain goat upper, hand braided, no split and no rexine
• Buffalo shoulder sole in three stitched layers, 9 mm total
• Vegetable tanned with bark and myrobalan, chromic oxide nil by ISO 5398
• Hexavalent chromium below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1, tested per lot
• Stitched with leather thong, no nail and no adhesive in the shoe
• Bottom sole layer can be unstitched and a new one stitched in
• It is stiff for the first ten to fifteen wears and it is meant to be. The pale tan darkens to honey over months and never stops. Keep it out of standing water, because vegetable-tanned leather with no chrome in it also has no water resistance to speak of.