Most fashion founders find out about counterfeiting the hard way. A customer flags a product that isn’t yours. Someone spots your designs on a marketplace you’ve never sold through. Or you search your own brand name and find a page of results you don’t recognise.
By that point, it’s usually been going on for a while.
We started Edwin James IP because we kept seeing the same thing: brands, artists, and creatives doing everything right, building something real, and having it quietly stolen from them. It’s not a niche problem. It’s one of the most widespread and fastest-growing forms of IP infringement in the world, and it hits brands at every level.
Real brand designs appearing on marketplaces without authorisation – a scenario more common than most founders realise.
The Numbers Are Hard to Ignore
In 2024, EU customs intercepted 112 million counterfeit items worth EUR 3.8 billion. Let that sink in. That’s 3.8 billion that should have gone to the original creators.
- Globally, clothing, footwear, and leather goods represent 62% of all counterfeit goods seized worldwide. (Source: OECD / EUIPO, Mapping Global Trade in Fakes 2025)
- In the US, handbags, watches, and jewellery account for approximately 77% of the total estimated retail value of all counterfeit goods seized. (Source: CBP FY 2024 IPR Seizure Statistics Report)
- Approximately 90% of all counterfeit goods seized at US borders originate from a single region. (Source: CBP FY 2024 IPR Seizure Statistics Report)
- Clothing accounted for 7.5% of all EU seizures. (Source: EU Customs, 2024 / Modaes Global)
- Counterfeit sales surge during peak shopping periods including holidays and major sales events, meaning the damage to your brand accelerates exactly when it matters most. (Source: CBP)
Remember: these are only the counterfeits that were intercepted.
Why It’s So Hard to Fight Alone
Counterfeit production has become genuinely sophisticated. Manufacturing hubs have the machinery, the labour, and in some cases direct access to original production lines, where unauthorised overnight runs produce near-identical goods. Counterfeiters undercut your prices because their costs are a fraction of yours.
Distribution is just as slick. Small parcels move through global logistics networks in ways that are difficult to detect. Some ship unassembled components to be put together closer to the destination market, specifically to avoid customs flags.
Most brand owners don’t have the time, the legal resource, or the industry contacts to go after this effectively. We do. And that’s exactly why we built this.
Introducing Edwin James IP Fashion
Edwin James IP Fashion is our dedicated fashion enforcement programme. We work with independent designers, fashion brands, and luxury labels across dresses, footwear, jewellery, swimwear, bridal wear, and more.
We work entirely on contingency. No service fees, no subscriptions, no upfront cost. We take on the legal risk and handle the process from start to finish. You only pay when we recover on your behalf.
Across all our programmes, we’ve taken 150,000+ copyright infringers to court and never lost a single case. Our fashion enforcement service is built on that same foundation.
“You have nothing to lose from working with us. Literally nothing.”
— David, Founder, Edwin James IP
What Fashion Founders Ask Us Most
We talk to a lot of founders and brand owners. The same questions come up every time, and we think they’re worth answering honestly.
- How big is this problem?
- Bigger than most brands realise. What gets seized is just the tip of it.
- Is it really affecting my brand?
- If you have any visibility online, almost certainly yes. Fake products divert revenue, damage your reputation, and erode the trust you’ve worked hard to build.
- I didn’t even know my images were stolen.
- You’d be surprised how common this is. Image theft is usually the first step before full product replication.
- How much time will this take from me?
- Very little. That’s the whole point of working with a specialist team on contingency.
- Will I have visibility into what’s happening?
- Yes. You’ll know what we find and what we’re doing about it, every step of the way.
- What damages could I actually recover?
- It depends on your situation, but recovering financial damages is very much part of what we do.
This Is Personal for the People We Work With
The brands we work with didn’t start in a boardroom. They started with an idea, a sketch, a camera, maybe a spare room and a lot of belief. Friends modelling. Late nights packing orders. Every penny reinvested.
Their clothes are worn to weddings, honeymoons, baby showers, and girls’ trips. They’re part of moments that matter to real people. When someone counterfeits that, they’re not just stealing revenue. They’re cheapening something that took years to build and means something to the people wearing it.
And here’s what makes it even harder to stomach: one of the most common things we hear from founders is that a customer contacted them asking for a return on a product they never sold. Someone bought a fake, thought it was genuine, had a bad experience, and came straight back to the real brand. The brand takes the hit. In reputation, in trust. For someone else’s inferior product.
Most founders who come to us describe the same feeling before they found us: helpless. Like protecting their IP in fashion is a grey area too expensive and too complicated to fight. Like the system is weighted against the brand. We understand that feeling. And we built Edwin James IP Fashion specifically to change it.
That’s what drives us. And it’s why we fight as hard as we do.
“From start to finish, Edwin James made us feel completely supported, giving independent designers and founders a real voice in standing up to counterfeit activity, which is such a rare and meaningful thing in this industry. The team truly cares about their clients and delivers results that make a lasting impact.”
— Dacey Trotta, Founder and CEO, Rumored
Who This Is For
Edwin James IP Fashion is for brands that are growing, visible, and starting to attract the wrong kind of attention. Whether you’re an independent designer building your audience or an established label operating at scale, this is a risk worth taking seriously.
If you’re seeing signs of infringement, or simply want to understand your exposure, we’d love to talk.
Get in Touch
Want to know more? Contact the Edwin James IP team. We’re real people, and we’re here to help.