Neither Cult Gaia nor Steve Madden invented the 80-year old Japanese bamboo picnic bag but that has not stopped the buzzy young Instagram brand and the accessories giant (and its namesake founder) from fighting over it in court for the past year. As of this week, Cult Gaia has been handed a preliminary loss, with the court shooting down the counterclaims made by founder Jasmin Larian’s legal entity, Jasmin Larian LLC, asserting that Mr. Steve Madden, himself, infringed Cult Gaia’s Ark bag trade dress, and engaged in unfair competition and deceptive business practices in the process.  

This summer, the U.S. government came into possession of 22 massive shipping containers filled with counterfeit designer goods. Acting upon information gained from a 6-year-long investigation into a sophisticated and elaborate scheme that stretched from China to the U.S. and involved at least 33 different men and women, the Department of Homeland Security seized tens of thousands of Gucci, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Burberry-branded products that would have been worth more than a half a billion dollars if authentic and sold at retail. It was one of the largest counterfeit seizures by U.S. Homeland Security in history.  

Instagram posts from influencers in Britain may soon look a tiny bit different. Paid-for posts may now include a prominently placed hashtag, #ad. Almost two years after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sent not one but two rounds of letters to nearly 100 influencers to inform them in no uncertain terms of the legal requirement that sponsored posts be clearly disclosed as such, a British government agency is stepping up to cut down on the widespread lack of transparency in popular influencers’ social media posts. 

For more than four decades, Prince Rogers Nelson became known for many things. He was a fashion plate that set global trends whether he was wearing little more than a crop-top and tightly-fitted low-slung trousers or immaculately-patterned and often, eye-catchingly-colored, suits. He was a “benchmark for any artist who believes themselves driven by creativity and unwilling to relinquish [legal] control” over his intellectual property, as the Daily Beast put it. Beyond that, he, along with some of his peers, he was a champion of breaking from convention and placing personal freedoms at the center of his repertoire.  

Just as Hedi Slimane’s first standalone menswear collection for Celine – complete with his well-established signature suiting (paired with suuuuper skinny ties), leather moto jackets, hints of sure-to-be-very-pricey animal prints and flannels, argyle sweaters, and a smattering of denim – was trotted down the runway in Paris, the brand’s social media staff was busy churning out black-and-white Instagram posts. One image, in particular, depicts Zach Choy, the young singer and drummer for Crack Cloud. 

“In an age of unprecedented technological innovation,” as Doug Palladini, Vans’ Global Brand President, describes the current state of things, Vans is doing things its own way. In other words, the brand – which got its start in sunny Santa Ana, California in the spring of 1966 under the watch of brothers Paul and Jim Van Doren and their business partners Gordon Lee and Serge Delia, who endeavored to produce simple-but-thick-soled slip on and lace-up sneakers in-house and selling them directly to a whole slew of So-Cal skaters and surfers – has continued to “lean on just five classic styles to drive its cultural relevance.” And that relevance, Palladini told Fortune, “has never been higher.”  

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton may be looking to add a new name to its roster of brands: a budding Milanese group that owns stakes in some of fashion’s buzziest streetwear brands. According to “market sources” cited  by WWD, the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate is eyeing New Guards Group, the niche fashion group founded in 2015 by DJ-slash-designer Marcelo Burlon, Claudio Antonioli of multi-brand boutique antonioli.eu, and fashion production and distribution mastermind Davide de Giglio. 

Couture – much like many aspects of the fashion industry – is a game of smoke and mirrors. What Christina Binkley called a “hush-hush, mysterious, tradition-bound world,” writing for the Wall Street Journal in 2016, many couture clients tend to shy from revealing their seasonal purchases by way of interviews and brands are routinely vague as to the figures their dedicated fans shell out for these hand-crafted creations, which are made-to-order clothes for private clients.

The past couple of years have been rife with scams. A wannabe-socialite named Anna Delvey was charged with multiple counts of grand larceny after bilking New York business people and upscale hotels of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Brands are routinely paying big-name influencers upwards of $70,000 to post fake reviews about rival brands, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s $250 million Goop brand was revealed in a stateside lawsuit and an international investigation to be promoting health benefits for products without actually doing any of the necessary fact-checking.

Almost 3 years ago, Beyoncé’s legal team, troubled with a new brand that had popped up in the market, filed a lawsuit. Consumers are likely to believe that Beyoncé was in some way tied to an array of bridal-themed wares with the word Feyoncé on them, the 37-year old music mega-star’s attorneys argued in the federal trademark infringement and dilution, and unfair competition suit they filed in April 2016 in a New York federal court against Andre Maurice and Leana Lopez. Even if consumers are not confused by the similar-looking, similar-sounding products, they claimed, the Feyoncé products dilute the value of Beyoncé’s wildly valuable name and so, the defendants should be forced to pull them from the market once and for all.