Every hole punched by hand.
Every stud placed deliberately,
Every sole stitched by someone
who learned this from their father,
who learned it from his.
The word Kolhapuri has been appearing in more places lately on international runways, in Western fashion editorials, most recently on a Prada mood board. But very few people asking "what are Kolhapuri sandals?" know what they are actually looking at when they see one. They see a flat leather sandal with geometric cutwork and metal studs. What they don't see is the seven hundred years of craft knowledge embedded in every pair.
At Kolhart, our sandals are made by karigar families in Pakistan — multigenerational artisans for whom this is not a skill they picked up, but one they were born into. This is how they make them.
The Leather
It begins with the hide. It breathes. It softens with wear. It develops a patina specific to the person wearing it.
The leather is inspected by hand before cutting begins. Thickness, grain, flexibility — a karigar reads these qualities through touch, not measurement. Pieces that don't meet the standard are set aside. There is no shortcut at this stage because a weak piece of leather cannot be corrected later.
Each sandal upper is cut using hand-held dies — metal templates shaped to the design. The cut must be clean and precise; a jagged edge affects both the appearance and the durability of the finished piece. A skilled karigar can cut dozens of uppers in a day. A new apprentice takes years to reach that consistency.
The geometric patterns that define Kolhapuri design are created entirely by hand-punched holes. Each hole is made individually using a metal punch and mallet — placed by eye, spaced by feel. The symmetry you see in a finished sandal is not the product of a machine. It is the product of thousands of hours of practice. This is the step that most visibly separates a genuine Kolhapuri from an imitation.
Metal studs — brass, copper, or oxidised silver depending on the design — are set by hand into the punched holes and pressed flat. Each stud is placed individually. On a single pair of Kolhart sandals, there may be anywhere from forty to over a hundred individual studs. They are decorative but also structural, reinforcing the leather at stress points.
Every hole. Every stud. Every stitch — placed by hand. This is how Kolhart has always been made.
The upper is stitched to the sole using waxed thread — hand-stitched around the entire perimeter. This is the most time-intensive part of the process. The stitching must be even, tight, and consistent. It is both the primary bond holding the sandal together and a visible design element. On a Kolhart sandal, you will often see the stitching highlighted in a contrasting thread colour — this is intentional, not incidental.
The completed sandal is burnished — the edges smoothed and sealed, the leather conditioned, the studs polished. A final inspection checks the pair against itself: are the two sandals identical in pattern placement, stud alignment, sole thickness? Only then does it leave the workshop.
Why This Matters Now
Fast fashion has trained consumers for instant gratification. The artisan needs time to do the work with the precision it requires. This is not inefficiency — it is the nature of the craft.
When luxury houses reference Kolhapuri design on international runways without attribution, part of what they are borrowing is this accumulated knowledge — the geometry, the technique, the cultural identity of a craft that has been refined over centuries in South Asia. The sandal on a Prada runway and the sandal made by a karigar family in Pakistan share the same DNA. One of them knows where it came from.
At Kolhart, our sandals are made by the families who hold this craft. When you wear a pair, you are wearing something that took a skilled artisan two full days to make — and a lifetime to learn how to make properly.