The Peshawari chappal: the leather sandal of Peshawar and Charsadda

• Worn by: men on Eid and at weddings, with the shalwar kameez, and by younger men with jeans; sold across Pakistan and abroad. [9, 14, 18]

• Made in: Peshawar (Namak Mandi, Jahangirpura), Charsadda and Shabqadar; the Kohati style in Kohat, Chakwal and Attock. [6, 7, 11]

• Materials: hard leather over a sole that is often cut from a lorry tyre. [4, 21]

• In the news: the "Kaptaan" chappal made for Imran Khan in Peshawar (2014 to 2015) and Paul Smith's "Robert" sandal (March 2014). [6, 17, 18]

One word, several towns

The leather sandal called chappal in Urdu is chaplay in Pashto. Nancy Hatch Dupree, writing on dress in Afghanistan for the Encyclopaedia Iranica, calls it a stout leather sandal, often soled with rubber cut from old tyres, and notes straw sandals, mazari chaplay, in Paktia. [4] The word is old. Raverty's Pashto dictionary of 1867 has two entries for it: tsaplai, a sandal "made generally of leather, but sometimes of a coarse grass called mazarey by the Afghans about Peshawer", and chaplai, sandals of leather or grass. [1] The artist Saks Afridi, who grew up in a village near Kohat, gave Arab News another spelling in 2019: this chappal is saplay in Pashto. [24]

"Peshawari chappal" is the name in the shops of Pakistan. A shoemaker in Chakwal told Dawn in 2018 that the same leather sandal is the Quetta chappal in Quetta, the Peshawari in Peshawar and the Dera chappal in Dera Ghazi Khan. [11] Arab News, writing about a Peshawar cobbler in 2019, calls it indigenous to the Pashtuns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. [13] The two statements sit side by side in the press, and both come up in the argument over the Paul Smith sandal below.

How a pair is made

Makers in Peshawar describe a pair as the work of several hands. Muhammad Khan, a shoemaker in Jahangirpura bazaar, told the state news agency APP in 2021 that a pair passes through six stages. The sole is made first, flattened with a piece of rubber. A piece of leather is sewn, then fitted to the sole in two stages. The pair is stuffed with a wooden form to stretch it and set the nails, leather and thread. Polishing and varnishing come last, and the border is painted with a chemical for a lasting shine. [14] Sultan Khan, a maker in Namak Mandi, told the Express Tribune in 2019 that a good pair goes through seven stages and that at least seven people work on it. "It is not simply a chappal but an industry," he said. [12]

The leather depends on the style. In Charsadda in 2013 a shop owner told Dawn that the material runs from hard leather to soft suede, and another named chrome leather, prized for its shine. [5] A dealer in Chakwal said the Peshawari model uses a tyre sole and that he prefers a leather one. [11]

Peshawar's bazaars

The Peshawar trade sits in two places. Namak Mandi, the salt market, has the shops of makers such as Nooruddin Shinwari, who told Arab News he opened there in 1976. [13] Jahangirpura bazaar, near Qissa Khwani, was in APP's words "a main center of skilled cobblers making Peshawari Chappal since long". [14] Qissa Khwani and the city are described in Peshawar: a short history of an ancient city and the Qissa Khwani massacre of 1930.

Local traders told the Express Tribune in 2019 that the Peshawar market had over 350 shops and produced 10,000 pairs a day, sent across Pakistan and to the Gulf. [12] That is a trader's estimate. Another dealer, Haji Sher Zaman, spoke to Dawn in 2015 of decline: Namak Mandi Chowk once had 60 chappal shops and now had 25, fruit and juice stalls were taking their places, and he would not pass the trade to his two sons. Traditional black and red had given way to many colours, and young buyers were choosing imported cut leather in fashionable styles. [6] The two accounts come from the same bazaar four years apart.

Shabqadar, in Charsadda district, claims a share. In March 2014 Ihsanullah, a maker there, told the Express Tribune that Shabqadar had more than 200 chappal shops and was the biggest supplier in Pakistan, though he granted that Charsadda is more famous. Each shop, he said, employed at least ten trained and five untrained workers, and some women stitched on machines. Another man, Nisar Khan, said the craft was centuries old in Shabqadar and that cobblers there were called mochi. [7]

The Charsadda style

Charsadda is the other name that goes with the chappal. In 2013 the president of the makers' association counted about 800 units and about 8,000 workers in Charsadda, making roughly 8,000 pairs a day. Dawn printed the same figures in 2024. [5, 15] The Express Tribune in 2017 gave 650 small units. [10] Dawn's 2013 report lists the popular Charsadda styles as single gear, double and triple gear, broad, narrow, T-shape, panjidar, slipper and sandal. [5] The district is described in Charsadda and Hashtnagar.

Makers disagree on how Charsadda differs from Peshawar. Rokhan Gul told Dawn in 2017 that the Peshawari is round and the Charsadda open in shape. [9] Haji Jahangir of Peshawar told the Express Tribune in 2016 that the Charsadda chappal has a single design with a narrow opening at the front, made of hard leather, and that women in the former tribal areas, particularly in Mohmand and Khyber, wore it until the late 1970s. [8] On the other side, Nisar Khan of Shabqadar said there had been two main Peshawari designs, panjaadar (open) and bund (closed), and that only the closed one was now popular. [7]

The government tried to help the Charsadda makers with a footwear institute. The Express Tribune dates it to 2001, and Dawn says training began in 2003 in a rented house on land of 32 kanals where the building was never raised. [5, 10] In 2017 the association's president, Malik Wahid, told the Tribune that the institute had closed because salary funds stopped, that the planned 200-shop market was never built, and that it had taught boot making when the market wanted hand-made chappals. [10] Dawn wrote in 2024 that training had continued in the rented house. [15]

Kohati and other named kinds

The Kohati chappal takes its name from Kohat. A Dawn writer in Chakwal reported in 2018 that the brand began in Kohat but that those made in Chakwal and Attock were better known than the Kohat ones. [11] Saks Afridi, from near Kohat, said that the Kohati style is wider than the Charsadda one. [24] The town is described in Kohat and the Kohat Pass.

Makers' counts of designs differ widely. Sifat Gul in Jahangirpura told Dawn in 2015 that about 600 varieties were made. [6] Haji Jahangir said in 2016 that the Peshawari has more than 30 designs. [8] In 2023 the Express Tribune, writing from the Nazimabad market in Karachi, said makers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa count around 200 hand-made types, among them the "F-16" three-gauge Charsadda chappal, Kohati, Mardan and Balochi sheepskin chappals, and designs named Markhor, Peshawar Zalmi, Kohati and Bannu. [16] The paper added that many of the Karachi chappals come from Bannu and Charsadda, and that Karachi makers bring workers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before Eid. [16]

History as far as it can be shown

The leather Peshawari chappal has no firm date. The earliest firm evidence is of the sandal in general.

Mountstuart Elphinstone, who led a British mission to Peshawar in 1809, wrote in his account of the Afghan kingdom (first published in 1815) that in the Khyber country the villagers spent their winters making mats and sandals, and that the Khyberees wore "neat sandals of straw, or the leaf of the dwarf palm". [2] Raverty's 1867 entries, above, still list grass beside leather. [1] Neither describes the Peshawari design.

Local accounts are vaguer. In 2013 Dawn wrote that "historians say" chappal making in the Charsadda area dates to Alexander's arrival, without naming any, and that a kind of slipper, khussa, called panrhay locally, was common there until the nineteenth century; the same piece names Hassan Gul Ustad, Mama Ustad, Tamash Ustad and Shehzad Mir Ustad as the men who gave the craft a modern form in the first two decades of the twentieth century. [5] A Peshawar maker told the Express Tribune in 2016 that the Peshawari form was first introduced in 1952 by Ustad Alaf Din, who worked at Royal Chappal in Abbottabad, and spread to Peshawar and Charsadda. [8] The two accounts do not agree with each other, and neither names a document.

The Express Tribune called the Peshawar chappal "centuries-old" in 2019 and gave no source. [12]

Who wears it

Men wear it at Eid and weddings with the shalwar kameez, and now also with jeans. [9, 14] Dawn's Madeeha Syed wrote in 2014 that every Pakistani man had owned a pair at some point, and called it as much a part of national identity as chicken tikka. [18] APP said in 2021 that the chappal was no longer confined to any culture or age group. [14] For the dress it is worn with, see Pashtun dress; for the headwear that goes with it, the Pashtun turban.

The buyers come from everywhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: APP found shoppers from Charsadda, Nowshera, Kohat, Swabi, Khyber, Mohmand and Bajaur in Jahangirpura bazaar before Eid in 2021. [14] Shopkeepers there said pairs went to South Africa, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Europe, Afghanistan and Russia. [14]

Women's versions are recent. In 2015 the Express Tribune reported that the Lahore brands Chapter 13 and Mochari were selling Peshawari chappals for women; Mochari's creative head said buyers had at first hesitated at a word linked to men. [21]

Chappals named for politicians

Peshawar's makers name designs after their customers. Haji Nooruddin Shinwari, owner of Afghan Chappal in Namak Mandi, made Imran Khan a double-soled pair, and Dawn reported in June 2015 that it was launched as the "Kaptaan special" on 8 January 2015. [6] His account of how it began varies. He told Dawn that he gave the pair at Khan's wedding. [6] He told the Express Tribune in 2019 that he saw Khan wearing chappals with a broken sole. [12] He told AFP that he made them when Khan was leading the Islamabad protests, and Arab News in 2024 that he first made them in 2014 as a "Special Peshawari Chappal" and renamed them Kaptaan in 2015. [17, 22] The pair took a week, cost Rs10,000 and had a three-month wait in 2015. [6] Peshawar makers told AFP in 2019 that the chappal's popularity had been falling for years until Khan's rise, and a Chakwal maker told Dawn in 2018 the same of the Kohati. [11, 22] Some in Chakwal said the Kaptaan's tyre sole is not as good as leather. [11]

Others followed. Haji Jahangir of Peshawar made a "shikari" chappal in 2016 for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, named for the tiger of the PML-N. [8] The Express Tribune reported in 2023 that Karachi sold a "Zardari" chappal said to have been made for Asif Ali Zardari, softer and cheaper than the Kaptaan. [16] After Khan was jailed in 2023, Nooruddin made a "Qaidi No. 804" chappal, with the prisoner number glued on, for Eid 2024; Arab News named him as the maker and reported that he received a presidential award that year. [17]

Paul Smith's "Robert", 2014

On 10 March 2014 Dawn reported that the British designer Paul Smith was selling a sandal called "Robert" for £300 that closely resembled the Peshawari chappal. Dawn's writer put the price at twenty times that of the same sandal from an upscale Pakistani store. The page at first named neither Pakistan, Peshawar nor Charsadda. [18] A petition on Change.org asked for the name to be changed to "Peshwari chappals"; Dawn counted about 50 signatures when it wrote, and Tariq Zaman, writing for Simon Fraser University's heritage project, counted 1,595 at the time of his post. [3, 18]

After a day of online anger the listing was changed, AFP reported. [19] The description now read "Men's high-shine black leather sandals with neon pink trims inspired by the Peshawari Chappal", and the name "Robert" no longer showed on the page, though the web address kept it. [18] Bina Shah, a Karachi writer, told Public Radio International that the page also dropped the name "Robert" for "patent-leather strapped shoe" and added the line "inspired by the Peshawari chappal". [20] Paul Smith's representatives did not answer the radio programme's request for comment. [20]

Pakistanis were divided. Dawn asked designers. Several called it a copy and wanted credit, one calling it "complete and utter stealing". Others said designers take inspiration all the time, and Adnan Pardesi said he might buy a pair. [18] In Peshawar, AFP found shopkeepers amused. Kamran Khalil of the Shoe Shop said "This design is outdated", and that only people in their sixties or seventies asked for it. Farhad Ullah, from a family of shoemakers for 70 years, said his father made that thin-soled, open-toed, high-gloss model but that there was no demand now, except from retired military or police officers. Zahir Shah of Style Collection Peshawar compared the price to the cost of a cricket bat used by Shahid Afridi: "Paul Smith is selling his name". Khalil also said "I am proud that the traditional Pashtun shoe is now available in the west as fashion", and asked designers to bring the design up to date. [19]

Zaman read the case as cultural appropriation and a failure to protect traditional knowledge, and compared it to the Basmati rice patent dispute. [3] Dawn's own writer framed the sandal as a national one, loved in every province. [18] The credit asked for was to Peshawar and Charsadda by name, and in the Peshawar bazaar the answer was that a famous designer had found the shoe worth copying. [18, 19]

Louboutin, Acne Studios and Markhor

In April 2019 Dawn carried an AFP report on the French designer Christian Louboutin's "Imran" sandal, studded and in orange and silver, which the fashion house said was inspired by the Peshawari chappal. It was named after the Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi, a friend of the designer. After criticism Louboutin removed his Instagram announcement and said he was sorry some people felt offended. The designer Kamiar Rokni called the claims of appropriation misplaced, while a buyer, Ghazan Khan, said local designers deserved a cut of the profits, and Riaz-u-Din, shopping for chappals, said "No one will wear it here in Peshawar." [22]

In July 2020 Instep, the weekly magazine of The News, wrote that the Acne Studios sandal, sold for $330, now said online that it was inspired by the Peshawari chappal, and that the Pakistani maker Markhor had campaigned successfully for that acknowledgement. [23] Instep also wrote that the Charsadda chappal in gold and silver thread had been shunned as tacky until about 2005 and came back into fashion after Paul Smith's sandal. [23] Instep gave no date for the Acne Studios change. Markhor was launched in 2010 by Sidra Qasim and Waqas Ali, and in 2019 made the winged "Hawa Sandal" with the Pakistani-American artist Saks Afridi. [24]

Prices

An ordinary pair cost Rs800 to Rs1,000 in Peshawar in 2015, and Rs1,200 to Rs2,500 in 2017, said Mahtab Khan, a maker in Jahangirpura. [6, 9] In Karachi in 2023 the Express Tribune gave Rs1,200 to 1,500, and Rs5,000 to Rs8,000 for the Kaptaan. [16] In May 2021 Muhammad Khan told APP that closing markets at 6 pm during the Covid lockdown would make him miss his Eid targets. [14]