Authored By: Soumya dash
Siksha O' Anusandhan Institute of Law
ABSTRACT
India’s rich textile and craft heritage has long been a source of global fashion inspiration, still the legal mechanisms available to protect these cultural-aesthetics remain inadequate structurally. While the geographical tags have been lauded as a tool for the protection of traditional products, they fall critically short when it comes to protecting the aesthetic essence-the motifs the visual identity and cultural narrative-that underlies India’s fashion traditions. This article argues that GI TAGS protect the product, not the soul, and proposes the need for a community Authorship Framework (CAF) as a supplementary legal mechanism to protect cultural fashion aesthetics from uncompensated commercial appropriation.
INTRODUCTION
We see luxury fashion houses print Kalamkari-inspired motifs on mass-produced polyester scarves and sell them for thousands of rupees; practically no law is broken.[1] We also view that brands like Manyavar and Mohey, Biba, and Cloth Haus India, a fast fashion brand, imitate the geometric weave of a Banarasi brocade on machine-made fabric manufactured overseas; no court intervenes.[2] When a global sportswear giant incorporates Phulkari embroidery patterns into a seasonal collection without acknowledgment or compensation to the Punjabi communities that have practiced this art for centuries, there is no legal remedy available.[3] This is the central paradox of fashion law in India: the law protects the label but ignores the legacy.[4]
Let’s take two recent controversies bringing this paradox into a sharp relief. In the year 2025, during the Milan fashion week, June , Prada presented open-toe leather sandals as a part of its spring-summer 2026 menswear collection-sandals that bore a striking resemblance to the Kolhapuri chappal, a handcrafted leather footwear tradition dating back to at least 12th century, practiced primarily by the artisan communities in Maharastra as well as Karnataka and including the historically marginalised dalit chamar community.[5] Prada described its product as “leather sandals”, with no acknowledgement of the Indian origins.[6] The luxury versions were priced upward of USD 1,200, while the traditional artisans who had perfected this craft over generations continued to earn a fraction of that sum. When backlash erupted across India, from artisans, politicians, and social media; pradas clear response was the design was merely “inspired” yet the resemblance doesn’t speak just inspiration rather it was copying. The Kolhapuri chappal had been given the Geographical Indication tag in 2019,[7] the IP experts have also stated that this protection offered no international enforcement.[8] The law, in other words, stopped at the border.[9]
The second controversy is much more revealing because it implicates not a product but an entire cultural aesthetic. From Kareena Kapoor twirling through the early 2000s in chiffon-draped silhouettes to Kendall Jenner, a generation of actresses, reclaiming the same fluid elegance, the softly flowing dupatta, a long defining element of South Asian dress, has endured as both heritage and statement, only to be curiously rebranded on Western social media as the “Scandinavian scarf,” drifting across the cultures yet carrying with it the same timeless grace, movement, and the quiet drama that has always belonged to it. European and American influencers presented this draped scarf look as a cutting-edge Nordic accessory, celebrating its minimal elegance yet making the whole outfit super charming. These influencers make no reference to its South Asian origins.[10] The typical irony was not lost on Indian audiences who recognized the style immediately as the very look worn by Bollywood heroines throughout the 2000s, an aesthetic that had literally defined an era of Indian popular culture. What had been an everyday garment, a cultural symbol, and a cinematic icon for the women in India for generations was repackaged for Western consumption as something new, chic, clean, and minimal.
These two incidents, may be separated by the product type and geography but has been united by the same structural failure, demonstrating precisely as to why India’s existing intellectual property framework is inadequate. The kolhapuri controversy exposed the territorial limits of GI -protection. The dupatta controversy exposed something real deep, that an entire cultural aesthetic, embedded in film, memory, and lived experience, can be extracted, renamed, and commercialised without any legal consequences whatsoever.
India is a home to some of the world’s most culturally, alluring and distinctive with historically layered fashion aesthetics-Banarasi silk, Madhubani prints, kalamkari, phulkari, kantha embroidery, and Ajrakh block prints, among dozens more. These are not merely decorative styles; they are the living cultural systems developed over the generations by the specific communities. Yet the current legal framework, harbour primarily in the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999,[11] the Copyright Act, 1957,[12] and the Trade Marks Act, 1999,[13] offers such communities only a fragmented and an ineffective protection. Despite the existence of multiple intellectual property instruments in India, a critical lacuna that persists in the legal framework; no existing law recognises a cultural aesthetic as a protectable subject matter which is capable of being collectively owned by its originating community.[14] The geographical indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 protects products of geographical origin but does not extend to the visual and aesthetic traditions that give those products their cultural value.[15] The copyright Act, 1957 presupposes individual authorship, rendering it inapplicable to aesthetic traditions developed collectively over the generations.[16] The Trade Marks Act, 1999 protects commercial identity, not cultural identity.[17] This gap hereinafter referred to as the aesthetic appropriation gap forms the central research problem of this article. The question this article seeks to answer is: are India’s existing intellectual property frameworks adequate to protect cultural fashion aesthetics, and if not, what form should a new legal framework take? This article examines that structural gap and proposes a community Authorship Framework as a new legal paradigm to fill this void.
THE GI TAG; PROTECTION WITH A CEILING
The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, was introduced to protect goods that originates from a specific geographical area and possess distinct attributes or qualities linked to that origin.[18] In the context of fashion, India has conferred GI status on products such as Banarasi silk sarees, Kancheepuram silk, and Pochampally Ikat. While this framework may seem comprehensive, in reality, it suffer from certain significant limitations.[19]
Firstly, GI protection are limited to the tangible product and does not extend to its aesthetic elements. For instance, although a GI tag safeguard Banarasi silk sarees as handwoven textiles produced in Varanasi through traditional techniques, it does not prevent others from imitating their stylistic features. Design elements like floral jaal motifs, zari work, and brocade patterns can still be replicated on machine-made fabrics produced elsewhere. This limitation became evident in the Prada–Kolhapuri controversy, where the absence of the term “Kolhapuri” mean that the GI framework could not address the issue of aesthetic imitation.[20]
Secondly, GI protection function in a reactive rather than preventive manner. It is triggered only when there is a misrepresentation of a registered product in the market, and therefore does not provide a mechanism to curb forms of aesthetic appropriation that fall outside the precise scope of the registered product description.[21]
Lastly, and most critically, the GI tag doesn’t confer authorship. GI registration does not recognise the community as a creative author with rights over their artistic tradition. It treats the geographical origin as a quality market rather than as a creative source. This distinction matters enormously-because it is the creative dimension of the aesthetics, not merely their geographical origin, that is being commercially exploited.[22]
III. The Failure of Existing IP Frameworks
Beyond GI tags, other IP instruments also fail to provide adequate protection.
Copyright Act, 1957 protects original artistic works but requires individual authorship and fixation. Traditional fashion aesthetics, developed collectively over generations and transmitted orally or through practice, do not fit neatly into this paradigm. There is no identifiable “author” in whom rights may vest, and many traditional patterns predate any concept of copyright registration.[23]
Trade Marks Act, 1999 protects distinctive marks used in commerce. A community living a cultural practice cannot register a trademark over their embroidery style before a corporation commercializes it. Trade dress protection, while extending to product aesthetics in some jurisdictions, is underdeveloped in Indian jurisprudence and has never been applied to protect community cultural aesthetics.[24]
Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is a defensive mechanism that documents traditional knowledge to prevent third-party patents. However, the TKDL does not create any positive right or remedy for the originating community. Documentation without legal remedy is preservation without protection. The combined failure of these instruments creates what may be described as an aesthetic appropriation gap a legal vacuum in which the most commercially valuable dimension of India’s cultural heritage, its visual and aesthetic identity, remains entirely unprotected.[25]
- The Community Authorship Framework: A Proposal
The Community Authorship Framework is a plan that says a community can be the owner of an aesthetic tradition. This means they have the right to say what happens to it. The Community Authorship Framework gets its ideas from laws that already exist. For example Geographical Indications show that Indian law can recognize a group of people from a place as having rights.[26] The World Intellectual Property Organization is working on rules that recognize the rights of communities around the world.[27] The Community Authorship Framework is also based on the idea that people have rights to their work even if it is not just about money. This is shown in the Copyright Act.[28] The law also recognizes that groups of people can own things together. The Community Authorship Framework would work in four ways.
- Community Registration: A community group, like a craft cooperative or a tribal council would register their aesthetic tradition with the government. They would describe what it looks like, where it came from and why it is important. This is different from registering a product because it is registering the itself.
- Consent and Licensing: If a company wants to use a communities aesthetic they would have to get permission from the community first. This would not stop artists from getting inspiration from the work of other communities. It would mean that companies have to pay for using it.
- Benefit-Sharing: The money from licenses would go into a fund for the community. The fund would be used to help preserve the craft support the people who practice it and document the culture.
- Moral Attribution: Even if a company does not have to pay for using a communities aesthetic they would still have to say where it came from. This is like giving credit to the community for their work similar, to how authors get credit for their writing. The Community Authorship Framework is a way to recognize the rights of communities to their aesthetic traditions. The Community Authorship Framework would help communities protect their heritage.
Addressing the Counterarguments
The proposal for a Community Authorship Framework is not without its critics, and three principal objections must be addressed. The first objection is that trends are inherently communal and that pinning legal authorship to a single community is arbitrary. This objection has some merit in the context of globally diffuse trends, but it weakens considerably when applied to distinctly identifiable, historically documented, community-specific aesthetic traditions such as Madhubani painting or Phulkari embroidery. These are not diffuse trends; they are discrete aesthetic systems with verifiable cultural provenance and clearly identifiable originating communities.[29]
The second objection is that legal protection of cultural aesthetics would restrict creative freedom and impede the natural exchange of artistic influences. The CAF does not seek to monopolize aesthetics or prohibit inspiration. It merely requires that commercial exploitation the extraction of economic value be conducted with consent and compensation. The distinction between inspiration and extraction is both ethically coherent and legally manageable, and finds support in the principle underlying Geographical Indications, which permits reference to geographical origin while prohibiting commercial misappropriation. The third objection is that existing frameworks, particularly GI tags and copyright, already cover this ground. As demonstrated in Part III, this argument fails on close examination. GI tags protect products, not aesthetics. Copyright requires individual authorship that communal traditions cannot provide. The gap is real, and existing instruments do not bridge it.
Conclusion
India stands at a unique intersection of cultural richness and legal inadequacy. Its fashion heritage is among the most diverse and commercially significant in the world, yet its legal framework offers these traditions only fragmentary protection. The GI tag, celebrated as a tool of heritage protection, protects only the product and not the aesthetic soul that makes it valuable. The Prada-Kolhapuri controversy and the rebranding of the dupatta as the “Scandinavian scarf” are not isolated incidents — they are symptomatic of a systemic failure to recognize cultural aesthetics as a protectable form of creative authorship. The proposed Community Authorship Framework offers a path forward — one that draws on existing legal concepts, addresses real market failures, and acknowledges the creative dignity of India’s artisan communities. It does not seek to close India off from the world of fashion but to ensure that the world’s engagement with India’s aesthetic traditions is conducted on terms of fairness, acknowledgment, and shared benefit. The law has long protected what is made. It is time for the law to protect what is created.
Reference(S):
[1] Kalamkari is a hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile produced in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, recognised under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (India).
[2] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §2(1)(e) (India).
[3] Copyright Act, 1957, §13(1)(a) (India) (conferring copyright in original artistic works).
[4] Trade Marks Act, 1999, §2(1)(zb) (India) (defining “trade mark” to include marks distinguishing goods or services of one person from those of others).
[5] See generally Madhavi Sunder, IP3, 59 STAN. L. REV. 257, 261 (2006) (discussing the limits of intellectual property in protecting traditional community-based knowledge and craft).
[6] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (India); Copyright Act, 1957 (India); Trade Marks Act, 1999 (India).
[7] Kolhapuri Chappal, GI Tag No. 451, Geographical Indications Registry, Government of India (2019).
[8] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §22 (India) (providing that infringement occurs where a person uses a registered geographical indication on goods not originating from the registered territory).
[9] See generally Srividhya Ragavan, The Intersection of Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property: A Survey of International Practice, 22 AM. U. INT’L L. REV. 35, 52–54 (2007) (observing that GI protection under TRIPS is essentially territorial and provides no cross-border enforcement mechanism against aesthetic imitation).
[10] Copyright Act, 1957, §13(1)(a) (India).
[11] WIPO/GRTKF/IC/43/5, Draft Articles on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, World Intellectual Property Organization Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (2023).
[12] Copyright Act, 1957, §2(d)(vi) (India) (defining “author” and confining the concept to a natural person, or in the case of computer-generated works, the person who causes the work to be created).
[13] Trade Marks Act, 1999, §2(1)(zb) (India).
[14] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §11(1) (India) (providing for registration of authorised users of a geographical indication).
[15] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §2(1)(e) (India) (defining geographical indications by reference to origin, quality, reputation, or other characteristic).
[16] Copyright Act, 1957, §13 (India).
[17] Trade Marks Act, 1999, §2(1)(zb) (India).
[18] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §2(1)(e) (India).
[19] See Raustiala & Sprigman, The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design, 92 VA. L. REV. 1687, 1689–92 (2006).
[20] MICHAEL BLAKENEY, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND THE PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE 45–48 (Edward Elgar 2019).
[21] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §22(1) (India).
[22] Rosemary J. Coombe, The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation and the Law 6–8 (Duke Univ. Press 1998).
[23] Copyright Act, 1957, §13(1)(a) (India).
[24] Anupam Chander & Madhavi Sunder, The Romance of the Public Domain, 92 CAL. L. REV. 1331, 1339–40 (2004).
[25] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §22(1) (India); Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, About TKDL, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, https://www.tkdl.res.in (last visited Jan. 2025).
[26] Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, §21 (India) (providing for collective rights of producers of GI goods).
[27] WIPO/GRTKF/IC/43/5, supra note 12.
[28] Copyright Act, 1957, §57 (India) (recognising moral rights of authors, including the right of attribution and the right to object to distortion or mutilation of their work).
[29] Madhavi Sunder & Madhurima Mishra, The Creativity Thesis and Cultural Progress, 30 YALE J.L. & HUMAN. 1, 4–6 (2018).
