कोल्हापुरी चप्पल (Kolhapuri Chappal)
Kolhapuri chappal is the traditional hand-stitched vegetable-tanned leather sandal from Kolhapur district, Maharashtra — one of India's most recognizable artisanal footwear traditions. The chappal is distinguished by its use of Cappalkar leather (specifically cattle hide tanned with locally grown babul bark — vegetable tanning that produces a supple, breathable, and biodegradable leather unlike chrome-tanned alternatives), and by its construction entirely by hand: the upper is hand-cut, hand-stitched, and hand-laced over the sole using no adhesive — all joins are structural through leather-to-leather stitching. The sole of a genuine Kolhapuri is a stack of layers of hand-cut and hand-glued leather compressed to the appropriate thickness. The distinctive decorative stitching on the upper (Puneri or Lakshmi patterns) is applied using an awl and a single thread in a continuous lock stitch. GI-registered in 2019. Approximately 25,000 artisans in Kolhapur's Kapashi and Shiroli clusters.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed; GI registered (2019)
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