Is Prada Low-Key Obsessed With Us?

Writing this piece came with a quiet hesitation. Not because the subject lacks urgency, but because engaging with it risks feeding very economy it critiques. Ragebait thrives on visibility, and luxury understands that attention, even dissent — is currency. Yet silence, especially when culture is flattened, aestheticised, and sold back to its people, has never been neutral either.

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Recently, Prada launched a new fragrance titled Infusion de Santal Chai. Described by the brand as a “woody and milky unisex fragrance with creamy notes of sandalwood, a spicy chai accord, fresh citrus, and comforting musks,” the scent is positioned as sensory and sophisticated. For Indians — or anyone who has ever known chai — it is not conceptual. It is lived.

Chai As Ritual, Not Aesthetic

Chai is not an abstract accord. It is memory and muscle. Milk and water simmering together. Elaichi cracking open. Saunf and masala warming the air. Steam rising at kitchen counters, at railway platforms, roadside tapris beneath office buildings. Chai accompanies heartbreak and late-night studying, job interviews and conversations that stretch past midnight. It is ordinary, yes — but that ordinariness is precisely what makes it intimate, even sacred.

Which is why watching a luxury house repackage chai into a fragrance and circulate it globally feels quietly unsettling. Not inflammatory enough to provoke outrage, but pointed enough to raise questions about power, legitimacy, and who gets to assign value.

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Stigma, Memory, and the “Monolith” Myth

India has been a tea-drinking civilisation for centuries, just as much of Asia has long held its own complex rituals around tea — from delicate infusions to ceremonial practices shaped by history and geography. Within India itself, chai is anything but singular: it shifts across households, climates and habits. Yet time and again, it has taken Western approval for elements of this specificity to be reframed as refined or desirable.

Hair oil, once dismissed as unclean, becomes a wellness ritual. Open-toed sandals, long considered informal, reappear as runway staples. The saree cycles through trend reports only once it’s “reimagined.” Now, chai enters the luxury lexicon.

And with it comes an uncomfortable question: would the same luxury house welcome you into its boutique if you smelled of chai and oil, without the mediation of glass bottles and minimalist typography? Because the stigma around Indian bodies and smells is not imagined. The “curry smell” slur is real. Oil in hair was long coded as dirty. Indian food and homes were described as pungent, excessive, overwhelming. It is only recently — aided by social media, food content, and global curiosity that Indian culture has been “rediscovered” as nuanced rather than monolithic.

But rediscovery without context is not appreciation. It is extraction with better branding.

What Gets Taken — and What Gets Left Behind

This pattern is not new. Last year, Kolhapuri chappals were rebranded as generic leather sandals until public scrutiny forced Prada into an apology and belated engagement with the artisans of Maharashtra who have sustained the craft for generations. Fashion’s archive is crowded with similar moments: bindis reframed as festival accessories, turbans repeatedly stripped of meaning on runways, the so-called “Scandi scarf” bearing uncanny resemblance to South Asian draping, and Gucci’s sari-lehenga moment that sparked more discomfort than celebration.

These instances are not isolated missteps. They point to a persistent blind spot. Cultural inspiration without origin, labour, or credit easily slides into appropriation. Appreciation requires collaboration, acknowledgment, and shared benefit. Appropriation borrows freely — and leaves the bill unpaid.

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To be clear, this is not an argument against cultural exchange. Some brands demonstrate that thoughtful engagement is possible. Diipa Khosla’s Indē Wild, for instance, does not sanitise Indian beauty rituals — it names them honestly. Champi Hair Oil is called exactly what it is, and even products like the masala chai dewy lip treatment reference familiar flavours without flattening their meaning. Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton SS26 showcase worked with Indian architect Bijoy Jain to design the set and collaborated with A.R. Rahman on the soundtrack, embedding Indian voices into the narrative rather than sampling the aesthetic. Recent collaborations from Diljit Dosanjh with Levi’s India to Nike’s first partnership with an Indian label NorBlack NorWhite — signal a more participatory approach.

Intention Matters. Execution Matters More.

Which brings us back to chai. If a homegrown Indian brand released a chai-scented perfume, would it carry the same cultural authority? Or does legitimacy still feel imported?

That question implicates not just luxury houses, but consumers too. Prada did not manufacture the response — it anticipated it. Naming the fragrance “chai” was not incidental. It was specific, charged, and designed to travel. Could it have been named something else? Easily. A generic gourmand title would have passed unnoticed. Chai does not. It carries heat, memory, and meaning — all of which convert seamlessly into visibility. In an attention economy, that visibility is invaluable.

Turning the Question Back on Ourselves

So is Prada obsessed with us? Or are we still negotiating our cultural worth through someone else’s recognition?

If the Kolhapuri chappals taught us anything, it is that critique alone is insufficient. Redirection matters. Knowing where and from whom to buy. Supporting artisans directly. Questioning why cultural legitimacy continues to feel external.

Perhaps the real test is not whether one would buy a chai-scented perfume, but whether one would choose the tapri over the boutique. The source over the symbol. Because culture does not need to be bottled to be valuable. It needs to be credited, protected, and allowed to exist on its own terms.