Gavin Rajah described as a bully in new copycat claim

Gavin Rajah is no stranger to copycat claims by other designers. International designer Zuhair Murad has accused him of copying his designs in 2014, while last year’s scandal centered around a dress almost identical to designer Han Chong’s dress. Similarly the infamous “pebble dress” was also up for debate and touted as an unoriginal design by designer Paul Van Zyl.

This year, international designer and illustrator for Dolce and Gabbana, Chelsea Liu of Chelsea Liu Designs says Rajah allegedly stole her designs and images, this, after her pictures appeared in an international magazine, which profiled Rajah.

The designer who is based in New York, and in South Africa, initially posted a social media post on Facebook saying: “Oh my god. What a shame! South Africa [sic] designer Gavin Rajah stole my pictures and my designs for his interview. I don’t know why this magazine doesn’t check their sources! Feel free to sue me. I’m ready to play. You are ready to play. Let’s play”.

She later posted the response received from Rajah to her social media post which threatened her status as an American citizen. Rajah threatened to lay a charge of cyber bulling against Liu.

The post read: “Hi Marc‚ I am writing this email only as a courtesy. In fact I write this out of respect for you. Should Chelsea not remove all her malicious posts on Facebook we intend sending an urgent application to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service via the US Consulate by our attorney today in SA illustrating our intent to pursue damages and a charge of cyber bullying.”

Liu’s husband, Marc Jenke spoke to the Citizen and explained the situation, saying: “Originally my wife was just venting on Facebook. We were fully prepared to drop it and not speak about it again. But when Gavin chose to threaten our private life and my wife’s green card, we were furious and decided he had gone too far.”

Since Rajah’s e-mail to Liu, no communication has been received from Rajah’s legal team nor from the US Embassy. “No, since the green card threat Gavin has not said anything. We don’t know or care whether he actually contacted US immigration, because we know that his threat is empty and ridiculous. We have not received any threat of legal action at this time, ” explains Jenke.

Initially Liu and Rajah were meant to collaborate on a bridal line, however it would appear that only Liu was actually meant to showcase the line in June last year.

Says Jenke: “To be clear, Gavin and Chelsea were planning to launch a bridal line together called Ready to Wed. However, the show was only for Chelsea Liu, featuring only dresses designed by her. Gavin has no right to use these images. Ready to Wed was planned to launch later. Obviously that business venture never started and is no longer possible. The website for Ready to Wed does not exist and never did as far as we know.”

Liu and her husband have already tried to pursue legal action against Rajah, but their case would only be tended to in 2017, and therefor decided not pursue any other legal action.

“We decided we have better things to do with our life than chase him through the court system. Additionally, by that time we would have a 1-year old son and we don’t want to deal with this problem in the future. We don’t want money. We just want people to know that he is a fraud and a bully, and that we are not afraid of him.”