Georgia Aldridge: Social media influencer ordered to pay £213,000 to luxury brands over secret side hustle

A social media influencer who built her online presence on the promise of helping brands “turn their posts into profit” has been ordered to pay £213,000 in compensation for her secret side business selling fake luxury fashion.

Content creator and social media marketing expert Georgia Aldridge faces a High Court case and a freezing injunction after running a “dropshipping” business. Fendi sold fake designer goods, including items purportedly from Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, some of which were sourced from Chinese online marketplace Ali Express.

Ms Aldridge, who has more than 32,000 Instagram followers and runs Sloane House Marketing in Loughton, Essex, found herself in court against the owners of exclusive fashion houses including Fendi Italia Srl, Christian Dior Couture SA and their parent company Lvmh Moët Hennessy Louis-Vuitton Se.

He and his company, Rolo Fashion Ltd, faced trademark infringement charges.

A default judgment was entered in favor of the fashion giants in January 2025, finding that both Ms. Aldridge and her company “infringed trademarks by selling what plaintiffs describe as counterfeit luxury goods bearing one or more trademarks.”

At the High Court last week, Judge Richard Hacon awarded the fashion brands £213,000 in damages.

Sales of fake designs, some of which took place via a private WhatsApp group, resulted in the loss of 713 genuine product sales and left companies without licensing income from more than 4,000 transactions, Ms Aldridge said.

The court heard the influencer’s dealings in “fake luxury goods” were stopped 18 months ago after lawyers for the fashion giants ruled against him and his company.

In last week’s ruling, the judge said Richard Ferguson had sought six-figure damages on behalf of the plaintiff fashion brands.

He told the court that companies “suffer three main losses”: damaged reputation of brands, lost profits as a result of lost sales and lost licensing revenue.

“Both parties presented evidence. For the plaintiffs there was a witness statement from Nicolas Lambert, head of online brand protection for Lvmh Moët Hennessy Louis-Vuitton Se,” the judge said.

“Mr Lambert explains that counterfeits may be of lower or higher quality.

“At least some of those sold by the defendants fall into the category of high-quality counterfeits, referred to as ‘super fakes’ or ‘knockoffs’ in online communities.

He adds that “the prices charged and greater attention to detail tend to mislead the public into believing these are genuine branded products, and the counterfeiting industry makes this distinction in online communications, using terms such as ‘1 for 1’ or ‘mirror quality’ to describe high-quality fakes.”

“The purpose of this evidence is to support the primary case advanced by the plaintiff that the sale of counterfeit products by the defendants resulted in loss of sales to the first through fourth plaintiffs rather than feeding a different market.

“One point is not disputed: the plaintiffs suffered losses under this head. I must therefore try to put a figure on that…. the defendants’ sales caused the plaintiffs to lose about 713 sales. Using a figure for the plaintiffs’ profit of about £280 per item gives a total loss of £199,640, which I will round up to £200,000,” he said.

The judge said the sale of 4,039 low-quality fake fashions for which the brands were required to pay licensing fees “was made by the defendants, which does not deprive the plaintiffs of the sale.”

It went on to pay a further £13,000 in damages under that claim, but rejected the claim that the brands’ reputation had been damaged as a result of Ms Aldridge’s activities.

“I see no evidentiary basis for a finding that the defendants’ sales had an impact on the reputation of any of the plaintiffs’ trademarks,” he said.

“I find Mr Lambert’s evidence that the plaintiffs’ trademarks have damaged his reputation as speculative and unsupported. For the reasons I have given, the evidence does not show that the defendants’ buyers believed that they were purchasing products from the plaintiff.”

“Most likely, they realized that they were dealing with the mundane situation of supplying counterfeit luxury goods by parties of which the brand owner had absolutely no approval.

“Accordingly, there is no reason to assume that the plaintiffs considered themselves to bear any responsibility for the quality of the products or the conduct of the supplier.

“I find that the allegation that the reputation of their trademarks has been damaged has no evidentiary basis.

“I will direct the defendants to pay the plaintiffs a lump sum of £213,000.”

The full list of plaintiffs is Fendi Italia Srl, Loewe SA, Christian Dior Couture SA, Celine SA and Lvmh Moët Hennessy Louis-Vuitton Se.