Mexico City (AFP) — US fashion designer Willy Chavarria said Saturday he regrets that sandals he created together with Adidas “appropriated” a traditional design from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

Local authorities had complained that the Oaxaca Slip-On sandals were a “reinterpreted” model of huarache sandals, particularly one found uniquely in the area, which has one of the highest Indigenous populations in the country.

Mexico’s government said Friday it was seeking compensation from Adidas.

“I deeply regret that this design has appropriated the name and was not developed in direct and meaningful partnership with the Oaxacan community,” Chavarria, who is of Mexican heritage, said in a statement sent to AFP.

Chavarria acknowledged that the sandals “did not live up to the resp

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