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Influencer Who Taught Fans How to ‘Turn Posts Into Profits’ Ordered to Pay $285K for Selling Luxury Fakes
An influencer who built her brand teaching others to “turn posts into profits,” according to her own Instagram bio, is now being handed a very different kind of bill.
Independent reported on Tuesday, July 14, that Georgia Aldridge, a content creator and social media marketing expert with over 32,000 followers on Instagram, has been ordered to pay £213,000 — which converts to nearly $285,000 in American dollars — in damages after a High Court judge found that she had secretly run a counterfeit designer fashion business as a side hustle.
Aldridge, who runs Sloane House Marketing in Loughton, Essex, sold fake luxury goods through her company, Rolo Fashion Ltd, including items made to look like they came from Fendi, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior.
Some of the products were reportedly sourced from the Chinese marketplace AliExpress and sold through a private WhatsApp group, as per the outlet.
The fashion houses, including Fendi Italia Srl, Christian Dior Couture S.A. and parent company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, took Aldridge and her company to court over trademark infringement.
According to The Independent, in last week’s ruling the judge said Richard Ferguson, who is representing the claimant fashion brands, had argued for six-figure damages.
Nicolas Lambert, LVMH’s head of online brand protection, told the court in a witness statement that “at least some of those sold by the defendants fall into the category of higher-quality counterfeits, referred to in online communities as ‘superfakes’ or ‘dupes,'” as per the outlet.
A default judgment in January 2025 found that both Aldridge and her company, Rolo Fashion Ltd, had infringed the brands’ trademarks.
Judge Richard Hacon ultimately ruled that Aldridge’s counterfeit sales cost the companies 713 lost sales and stripped them of licensing revenue on more than 4,000 additional transactions, the Times UK reported on July 14.
“I will direct that the defendants must pay to the claimants collectively the sum of $285,000,” Hacon said during the ruling.
Aldridge’s counterfeit operation reportedly shut down 18 months ago after the judgment against her was secured.
