Rights on paper, nothing behind them
On 29 July, Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast ran an interview with intellectual property lawyer Clive Elliott KC on the growing problem of local fashion labels being ripped off by Shein and AliExpress. His verdict on fighting back was blunt: it “takes a lot of time and resource.” His fix is for designers to band together, build a shared design registry, and appoint a collective spokesperson.
That is the news peg. The real story is bigger, and it is not confined to fashion.
In New Zealand, copyright arises automatically the moment an original work is created. No registration required. Sounds like protection. In practice it is a right without a remedy. As Lynell Tuffery Huria, managing partner of Kahui Legal, explained in 2026, automatic rights are close to worthless without the money to enforce them: “There’s not a lot that artists can really do about it, unless they have the financial means. The onus sits with them to enforce those rights. Legal avenues are expensive.”
She also called the Copyright Act itself “significantly” out of date, unfit for a world of digital reproduction and AI. That is not a fringe complaint. It is a widely acknowledged gap in the country’s IP framework, and it leaves every small business with original design exposed.
The scale asymmetry the trade data lays bare
The numbers explain why individual enforcement is hopeless. In 2024, New Zealand exported just $118,000 of women’s and girls’ dresses made from artificial fibres, ranking 88th of 163 exporters. In the same year it imported $10.2 million of the same product, $8.24 million of it from China alone, a trade deficit of $10.1 million in one narrow category.
Widen the lens and the gap yawns further. In 2023, China exported $280.9 million of apparel and clothing accessories to New Zealand, roughly 70% of the country’s total imports in that category. Australia was a distant second at $79.4 million.
Against that, Shein produces around 6,000 new garments a day and has at least 200 million app downloads globally. A small Auckland label taking legal action against Shein is not David versus Goliath. It is a sole trader against a vertically integrated global supply chain with unlimited legal budget and zero reputational stake in this market.
Catch me if you can
Australian fashion IP lawyer Sharon Givoni has described offshore manufacturers as running a “catch me if you can” approach to infringement. Her advice to small designers is to be strategic, trademark distinctive details, and act fast, because “the longer you wait, the more damage is done.”
But she also conceded the hard truth. Court wins “will not stop copying occurring”. By the time a case resolves, the knock-off has already sold through. Australian designers have largely stopped fighting for exactly this reason. NZ Customs can screen at the border but cannot inspect everything, it is physically impossible.
The US closed its de minimis loophole, which let low-value parcels ship in duty-free and handed Shein and Temu a structural advantage. New Zealand has signalled no equivalent move. It also sat out the 28-nation World Intellectual Property Organization Riyadh Design Law Treaty in 2024, leaving itself outside the very framework being built to address this problem.
Why this matters beyond fashion
Fashion contributes $8 billion to the New Zealand economy, so this is not a boutique concern. And the fast-fashion model dumps its costs downstream too: 52,000 tonnes of clothing go to landfill in New Zealand each year, 500kg every five minutes, with charity shops swallowing the disposal bill.
For Maori designers there is a further layer. Tuffery Huria noted in 2026 that Maori designs carry whakapapa and matauranga, so unauthorised copying is a cultural violation as well as a legal breach, and the unresolved Wai 262 claim adds still more complexity.
The point generalises to any Kiwi business with original IP, software, product design, architecture, creative content. The rights exist. The enforcement economics do not work, and offshore competitors know it. Elliott’s collective-registry idea is the most credible near-term option inside the existing law, spreading enforcement costs, building an evidentiary record, and giving the sector a louder voice. But it is a workaround, not a fix. Until the Copyright Act is modernised and New Zealand joins the international design framework, protection here remains a promise the state cannot keep.
Sources
- Clive Elliott KC on New Zealand designers copied by fast fashion giants like Shein and AliExpress (2026-07-29)
- The mysterious online store selling (and maybe stealing) Maori designs (2026)
- The cost of fast fashion to NZ and Maori designers driving change (2025-11-23)
- Women’s and girls’ dresses of artificial fibres, New Zealand trade (2024)
- Apparel and clothing accessories exports to New Zealand (2023)
- Small Australian designers giving up on fighting fast-fashion giants
- Black market shopping – is it safe to buy and sell a super fake?
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