Influencer is ordered to pay £213,000 in damages for secret side hustle selling fake Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, and Fendi goods

Published: 12:08, 14 July 2026 | Updated: 12:13, 14 July 2026 A social media influencer who was secretly selling fake designer goods has been ordered to pay £213,000 in damages to the owners of Fendi, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior.  Georgia Aldridge was accused of running a 'dropshipping' business alongside her social media business.  She sold fake fashion gear worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, some of which she ordered through Chinese online marketplace AliExpress.  Ms Aldridge, who runs Essex-based social media marketing agency Sloane House Marketing and has over 32,000 followers on Instagram, boasts online that she helps 'brands grow and turn posts into profits through creative social media marketing and content creation'.  Her website said she 'launched an online fashion business, quickly scaling it to heights beyond her expectations'.  But in 2025 she was accused of trade mark infringement through her company Rolo Fashion Ltd after being sued by some of the world's most exclusive fashion brands. A default judgement was then granted in favour of the fashion giants, finding that both Ms Aldridge and her fashion company had 'infringed the trade marks by selling what the claimants describe as counterfeit luxury goods'.  Last week, Judge Richard Hacon awarded the fashion brands £213,000 in damages at the High Court.  The judge found that Ms Aldridge had cost the companies 713 sales of genuine products and deprived them of licensing income on more than 4,000 transactions.  Georgia Aldridge was accused of running a 'dropshipping' business alongside her social media business Ms Aldridge runs Essex-based social media marketing agency Sloane House Marketing and has over 32,000 followers on Instagram Ms Aldridge used dedicated WhatsApp groups to sell the counterfeit items.  Some of the items sold were referred to as 'superfakes' because of how high-quality they were, the court heard.  These dupes, with a higher price and a 'higher attention to detail', were more likely to be perceived as genuine by the public - and so were more likely to 'deprive' the brands of a sale. The judge said that the 4,039 sales of lower quality fake fashion were 'made by the defendants which did not deprive the claimants of a sale' but still awarded £13,000 under that claim.  Judge Richard Hacon said that Richard Ferguson, for the claimant fashion brands, had argued for six-figure damages, telling the court they had suffered: 'three heads of damage: damage to the reputation of the brands, profits lost as a consequence of lost sales and lost licensing income.'  While the judge agreed on the issues of lost profits and licensing income, he threw out the argument that the brands suffered reputational damage as a result of Ms Aldridge's activities.  The judge found 'evidence on damage to the reputation of the claimants’ trade marks to be speculative and lacking in support' because buyers did not think they were buying the real deal.  The judge ordered Ms Aldridge to pay the brands the total sum of £213,000.