The Austin, Texas-based brand – which is a mainstay in the pageant world, and also routinely, one of the most buzzed-about brands on social media during the bi-annual New York Fashion Weeks in large part thanks to its casting of famous faces like Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin – claims that its rival dress-maker of “intentionally, willfully, maliciously, and in bad faith, utilizing valuable intellectual property without permission in a scheme to design, manufacture, and sell knock-off dresses.”Īccording to the complaint that counsel for Austin, Texas-based Sherri Hill filed in a federal court in Texas last week, Amarra is not just “unfairly competing” with Sherri Hill – a “direct competitior” that stocks its $300-plus to $900-plus special-occasion dresses in over 1,000 stores in over 52 countries and has attracted fans like “Selena Gomez, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Ariana Grande, and Kendall Jenner” – by way of its copycat dresses. One of the biggest players in the prom dress market, for instance, Sherri Hill has named Amarra USA in what could ultimate be a multi-million dollar suit, accusing its rival dress-maker of “intentionally, willfully, maliciously, and in bad faith, utilizing valuable intellectual property without permission in a scheme to design, manufacture, and sell knock-off dresses.” It also does not mean that copycat-centric lawsuits are not underway between rival dress-makers. While the annual dances have been pulled from school calendars indefinitely in light of the spread of COVID-19, that does not mean that dress-makers have not been churning out sequin and lace-adorned dresses just as they do each year leading up to prom season. Prom is firmly off the table for high schoolers across the country, which is not merely a disappointment for home-bound students, but it represents a sizable setback for the $110 million-plus U.S.