Adidas stole the design of sandals with traditional Mexican craftsmen, known as Sheinbaum

The controversy has fueled the accusations of cultural credits by the shoe brand, the authorities claiming that this is not the first time that traditional Mexican crafts are copied. Citing these concerns, local authorities asked Adidas to remove the shoe model.

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday that Adidas was already in talks with the authorities of the southern Mexican of Oaxaca to provide a “compensation to the plagiarized persons” and that her government prepared legal reforms to prevent the copy of Mexican crafts.

The design in the center of the controversy is the “Oaxaca Slip-on”, a sandal created by the American designer Willy Chavarría for Adidas Originals. Sandals have thin leather straps braided in a style that is undoubtedly similar to traditional Mexican huaches. Instead of flat leather soles, Adidas shoes praise a larger sports shoes sole.

According to Mexican authorities, Adidas’ design contains elements that are part of the cultural heritage of the indigenous communities of Zapotec in Oaxaca, in particular in the city of Villa Hidalgo de Yalálag. Crafts are a crucial economic rescue in Mexico, offering jobs for about half a million people across the country. The industry represents around 10% of the gross domestic product of states such as Oaxaca, Jalisco, Michoacán and Guerrero.

For Viridiana Jarquín García, a creator and seller of Huaraches in the capital of Oaxaca, Adidas shoes were a “cheap copy” of the type of work that Mexican artists take time and care to manufacture.

“Art is lost. We lose our tradition, ”she said in front of her small leather shoe cabin.

The Oaxaca authorities have asked that the “Slip-on of Oaxaca” be withdrawn and demanded public apology from Adidas, with those in charge of conception as a “cultural appropriation” which could violate Mexican law.

In a public letter to the management of Adidas, the governor of the state of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara Cruz, criticized the conception of the company, affirming that “creative inspiration” is not a valid justification for the use of cultural expressions which “provide an identity to the communities”.

“Culture is not sold, it is respected,” he added.

Adidas responded in a letter on Friday afternoon, saying that the company “deeply values the cultural richness of the Aboriginal peoples of Mexico and recognizes the relevance” of criticism. He asked to sit with local officials and discuss how he can “repair damage” to indigenous populations.

Controversy follows years of government efforts and Mexico craftsmen to repel the major brands of world clothing which, according to them, copy traditional conceptions.

In 2021, the federal government asked manufacturers, including Zara, Anthropology and Patowl, to provide a public explanation to explain why they copied the conceptions of clothing from the Aboriginal communities of Oaxaca for sale in their stores.

Now the Mexican authorities say they are trying to resolve more strict regulations in order to protect artists. But Marina Núñez, under-secretary of the cultural development of Mexico, noted that they also wanted to establish guidelines so as not to deprive artists of “the opportunity to negotiate or collaborate with several of these companies which have a very wide commercial range”.