Designer Gaurav Gupta takes on fashion fakes

Delhi-based fashion designer Gaurav Gupta is at the forefront of the fight against counterfeit luxury products in India, with nine cases filed in the Delhi High Court against various counterfeiters.Gupta – who has featured in the Paris Couture Week three times and whose designs have been worn by fashion powerhouses like Beyonce (for her Renaissance tour), Cardi B (Grammys 2023) and Mindy Kaling (Met Gala 2024) – has claimed damages of ₹2 crore from each of the counterfeiters and aims to get restraining orders against all nine.

Most of these cases involve parties operating in Delhi, with one case in Mumbai and Punjab each.

Gupta filed his first suit against counterfeit in 2017. The rest were filed between 2021 and 2024. Out of the nine, three have been decreed in favour of Gupta. In the remaining six, interim injunction orders have been passed.

The court has acknowledged the intellectual property (IP) rights of Reflect Sculpt Pvt Ltd (RSPL), the holding company of Gaurav Gupta Couture (GGC), and restrained the defendants from manufacturing counterfeit garments and violating their IP. The defendants, on their part, destroyed all counterfeit garments and removed related online content.

In one instance, the defendants operating out of Delhi, Jalandhar and Amritsar paid damages and litigation cost of ₹10 lakh to RSPL. “Counterfeiters copied our signature sculpting techniques, misleading customers into thinking they were purchasing our designs,” Gupta, who sells a garment for roughly ₹4.5 lakh, told ET. His legal representative Siddharth Bambha said the cases are a significant precedent in protecting the rights of designers.

The company has involved a team of 4-5 advocates and 2-3 investigators in each case. The counterfeits were determined through market and social media searches. The investigators assessed the extent, details on sales, pricing, design sourcing, and the counterfeiters’ awareness of RSPL’s rights. The total cost incurred is approximately ₹5-6 lakh per case, including court fee of ₹2 lakh.

A report earlier published in ET said that in 2020, the fashion industry globally lost over $50 billion in potential revenue due to the rise in sales of counterfeit goods, and it was likely to reach $81 billion by 2026.

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