Common Projects Brand Audit: Founder-Held Marks, Italian-Made Achilles, and No Named Indian Partner

Common Projects is the minimalist leather sneaker with ten gold numbers stamped on the heel. It was started by Prathan Poopat and Flavio Girolami, launched its first collection in autumn 2004, and has built its name on one shoe, the Original Achilles, made in Italy and sold through a small circle of luxury retailers.

It is also a brand that says very little about itself in public. It files no annual report, publishes no revenue, and its trade marks in the United States are held by its two founders personally rather than by a company. This page sets out what the record shows, what the retailers say, and what an Indian buyer can and cannot check.

Snapshot

Founders

Prathan Poopat and Flavio Girolami; first collection autumn 2004

Ownership

Private; no listed parent, and no published sale or outside investment found

US trade marks

COMMON PROJECTS, Reg. Nos. 4702027 (classes 18 and 25) and 5193605 (class 25): Flavio Girolami, with Prathan Poopat recorded as co-owner (4702027) and subsequent owner (5193605); USPTO data via the Justia mirror

Operating company

Not established from a filing; a business-data aggregator lists “Common Projects LLC” in New York

Revenue

Not published; “roughly $10 million” a year, as told to Business of Fashion about a decade ago

Made in

Italy, per retailers’ product pages; the Marche region, per Highsnobiety and Business of Fashion

Indian company or partner

None found on the companies-register or trade-mark mirrors

On Myntra, 21 September 2026

No brand listing; Columbia control 2,433

Who owns Common Projects

The founding story is consistent across the press. Highsnobiety calls Common Projects “a luxury footwear brand founded by Prathan Poopat and Flavio Girolami in 2004”. Life + Times, writing on 19 November 2012, says it was “established by Prathan Poopat and Flavio Girolami”. Business of Fashion dates the first collection to autumn 2004, though it gives the first founder as “Peter Poopat”. This page uses Prathan, the spelling on the trade-mark register.

Business of Fashion’s profile, by Jian DeLeon, carries no readable date, but it says “after a decade in business”, which places it around 2014. In it Girolami describes the starting money as “small”, drawn from his and Poopat’s own salaries, with no outside investors. That is a founder’s account to a journalist about ten years ago, not a filing. We found no later report of an investment, a minority stake or a sale, though a private deal need not be published.

The clearest ownership record is the US trade-mark register, read through Justia’s copy of USPTO data. The COMMON PROJECTS marks there are held by people, not a company. Girolami is the original owner on each; Poopat appears alongside him on the two live registrations. Registration 4702027, covering bags and footwear “including boots, booties, sandals, shoes, slippers, sneakers”, was filed on 28 July 2014 and registered on 17 March 2015. Its owner is Flavio Girolami, with Prathan Poopat shown as current co-owner.

Registration 5193605, for clothing, was filed on 16 September 2016 and registered on 2 May 2017. Girolami is the original registrant, and Poopat is recorded as a subsequent owner. An earlier clothing registration, 3750034, held by Girolami from 16 February 2010, was cancelled on 23 September 2016 for want of a Section 71 declaration, the filing that keeps such a registration in force. All three came into the United States through the Madrid international system, under international registration 0996429, which is due for renewal on 27 November 2028.

USPTO records via Justia, serials 79154866, 79197975 and 79066396; Business of Fashion.

Who actually trades as Common Projects is less clear. ZoomInfo, a business-data aggregator, lists “Common Projects LLC” at 420 West 14th Street in New York. That is what an aggregator carries, not a state filing, and we have not read a New York or Italian company record. The mirror did not show the trade-mark holders’ address or nationality either.

The money is equally private. The only revenue figure on record is Business of Fashion’s, from about 2014: the company “generates ‘roughly $10 million'” a year. It is a number given to a journalist a decade ago, not accounts, and nothing since has replaced it. Aggregators print estimates of revenue and staff numbers, but they disagree with other accounts of the company’s size, and this page prints none of them.

Where the shoes are made

Because the company files no annual report, there is no statement to any regulator on its factories or countries. What the record holds comes from retailers and the press. Mr Porter’s page for the Original Achilles reads: “White leather. Gold stamped serial numbers, leather linings, rubber soles. Lace-up. Come with dust bag and spare laces. Made in Italy.” SVD lists Italy as the country of manufacture for style 1528-0506, and gravitypope lists “Made in: Italy” for 3701-0506.

The region is named by two publications. Highsnobiety says “All of Common Projects’ shoes are factory-made in the Marche region of Italy.” Business of Fashion describes Girolami going to the Marche, “a manufacturing hub specialised in footwear”, and working with a local factory with more than a century of dress-shoe experience. Neither names the factory, and no source we read does.

The brand’s own wording on where its shoes are made was not readable in this pass, so every “Made in Italy” line on this page is a retailer’s. If you buy a pair in India, the Legal Metrology block on the box, which must state the country of origin, is the declaration that counts.

What the product pages claim

The claims around the Achilles are about materials, and they are modest. Retailers describe a leather upper and leather lining on a rubber sole. Mr Porter gives the composition as “80% Leather 20% Various Materials”. No page we read names the tannage, meaning whether the leather is chrome- or vegetable-tanned, or any leather certification.

There is no waterproofing claim and no named comfort technology. The shoe is sold on its shape, its Italian make and its stamp, and the retailers’ copy says nothing beyond that which a buyer would need to test.

Who sells Common Projects in India

We found no Indian route for the brand. A search of the companies register, through the ZaubaCorp mirror, for “common projects” and “common project” showed two companies, Cocoon Projects LLP in Bangalore and a Puducherry multimedia firm, neither connected to the shoes. The same search for “superga” put the known Superga Beauty India Private Limited first, so the mirror finds an exact name when one exists.

That shows no Indian company carries the Common Projects name. It cannot rule out a distributor trading under a different name. But no Indian subsidiary, licensee, distributor or joint venture is named in anything published that we found, and the owner files no annual report that would name one.

The Indian trade-mark register, read through the QuickCompany mirror, tells the same story. Searches for “common projects” and “common project” showed only unrelated marks, among them “Cocoon Projects” and “The Common Room Project”. A search on “girolami” showed sixteen marks, none of them his. The same mirror returned 781 matches for “superga”, so it can find a foreign footwear brand’s filings. No COMMON PROJECTS mark in classes 18, 25 or 35 appears on it, and so no registered Indian user.

Two of India’s specialist sneaker shops were checked on 21 September 2026. VegNonVeg’s search for “common projects” showed “No results found”, while “new balance” brought up 20 products. Superkicks has no Common Projects brand page, where its New Balance page lists 124. That shows no brand page on Superkicks, not that no pair has ever been listed there.

The name is held by two men rather than a company, the shoes are made in Italy, and in India we found nobody named to sell them.

Whether the brand’s own online store delivers to India was not readable in this pass, so this page does not say either way. What it can say is that the channels we could check, on the date we checked them, did not carry the brand.

What Common Projects costs in India

There is no Indian price to report. On 21 September 2026 Myntra had no Common Projects brand filter at all; a free-text search brought back ethnic wear from other labels. The same method found 2,433 listings for Columbia that day, so the listing was working. That is a fact about one large Indian shop on one day, not proof the brand is absent from India, and with no Indian selling price read, this page sets no price tier.

The brand’s own prices were not readable in this pass either, so the table below shows what retailers abroad charged. These are retailers’ prices, not the brand’s, and no currency conversion is shown.

Retailers’ product pages, read 21 September 2026. None states whether sales tax or VAT is included.

The same shoe, 1528-0506, carried USD 525 at SVD and USD 389 regular at END.’s US site, about 35% apart. Tax treatment, regional pricing or an old price may explain it; neither page says. That is why no global price anchors a comparison here. Only the brand’s own list price could, and it was not readable in this pass.

A pair bought abroad and shipped in goes through customs at 20% basic duty plus an 18.5% agriculture cess, 38.5% in all, charged on landed value rather than the shelf price, with 18% GST on a pair above ₹2,500. Pairs carried back in your own luggage count instead against the ₹75,000 free baggage allowance.

The heel numbers, and what they prove

The gold stamp is the brand’s signature, and it is often mistaken for a serial number. Business of Fashion describes “ten numbers, divided into three sets, stamped in gold on the outer heel of each shoe”: the style number, the European size and the colour, originally meant as branding that could be rubbed off. Life + Times puts it plainly: “The numbers quite simply are a demarkation of the style, the size and color.”

Highsnobiety gives the order. The first four digits are the article number, the next two the European size, and the last four the colour. So the white Original Achilles Low, 1528-0506, in a size 43 reads 1528 43 0506, and so does every other white size-43 pair of that model.

That is the point for a buyer. On these sources the stamp is a product code shared by every pair of that model, size and colour, not a number unique to one pair. Nothing we read says it can be looked up, and a copy can print the same digits. A correct stamp tells you the numbers match a real model; it does not tell you the shoe is genuine. What the brand itself says about the numbers was not readable in this pass.

The Indian court record

Indian Kanoon searches run on 21 September 2026 for “common projects” with footwear, for “common projects” with trademark, and for the founders’ surnames together showed one result in all, an unrelated Supreme Court matter between Cox and Kings and SAP India. The same method returned 30 results for “skechers” with trademark, led by a Delhi High Court judgment of 17 February 2026, so it can surface a footwear brand’s Indian cases. On those terms, the record holds no Indian decision involving Common Projects or its founders.

Who Common Projects is actually for

Common Projects suits a buyer who wants a plain, Italian-made leather sneaker and is prepared to buy it from a named luxury retailer abroad, at USD 389 to USD 525 for the low Achilles on the pages read. The brand’s minimalism extends to what it publishes: no accounts, no factory name, and trade marks in its founders’ own names.

It suits less well a buyer who wants an Indian receipt from an identified seller. We found no Indian company, partner or trade-mark filing, and Myntra had no brand listing on the day it was read. Readers comparing leather sneakers on Indian shelves can read our audits of adidas, Skechers and Crocs, each of which traces who sells the brand here.

Common questions

References

1. Business of Fashion, “De-Mystifying the Cult of Common Projects”, Jian DeLeon (undated, about 2014) — autumn 2004 launch, “Peter Poopat” spelling, founders’ own funding and no outside investment, “roughly $10 million” revenue, the Marche factory, the ten-digit heel stamp
2. Highsnobiety, Common Projects tag page — founders and 2004 founding, factory-made in the Marche region, order of the heel digits
3. Life + Times, “Common Projects: Form & Function”, 19 November 2012 — founders’ names; the numbers as style, size and colour
4. USPTO data via Justia, serial 79154866, Reg. No. 4702027 — classes 18 and 25, filed 28 July 2014, registered 17 March 2015, Girolami with Poopat as co-owner, IR 0996429
5. USPTO data via Justia, serial 79197975, Reg. No. 5193605 — class 25, filed 16 September 2016, registered 2 May 2017, Poopat as subsequent owner, IR renewal 27 November 2028
6. USPTO data via Justia, serial 79066396, Reg. No. 3750034 — filed 27 November 2008, registered 16 February 2010, cancelled 23 September 2016
7. ZoomInfo, Common Projects LLC — the aggregator’s New York address listing
8. Mr Porter, Original Achilles leather sneakers — “Made in Italy”, materials, composition, GBP 380
9. SVD, Original Achilles Low 1528-0506 — country of manufacture Italy, USD 525
10. END. US, Original Achilles Low 1528-0506 — USD 389 regular, USD 233 sale
11. END. US, Original Achilles Mid 1529-0506 — USD 465 regular, USD 289 sale
12. gravitypope, Woman by Common Projects 3701-0506 — made in Italy, CAD 750
13. Companies register mirror, search “common projects”, 21 September 2026 — two unrelated companies
14. Companies register mirror, search “superga” — the control search
15. Trade mark mirror, search “common projects”, 21 September 2026 — unrelated marks only
16. Trade mark mirror, search “girolami” — sixteen unrelated marks
17. Trade mark mirror, search “superga” — the control search, 781 matches
18. VegNonVeg, search “common projects”, 21 September 2026 — no results; control “new balance”, 20 products
19. Superkicks, New Balance brand page, 21 September 2026 — 124 products, against no Common Projects brand page
20. Myntra, read 21 September 2026 — no Common Projects brand listing; Columbia control 2,433
21. Indian Kanoon, search “common projects” trademark, 21 September 2026 — one unrelated result; the footwear and founders’ searches showed none
22. Indian Kanoon, search “skechers” trademark, 21 September 2026 — the control search, 30 results