How we audit a brand
A FashionAudit brand audit answers the questions a buyer in India actually has: who owns this brand, who makes the product, what it costs here compared with abroad, where to buy it safely, and whether it is worth the price. This page explains how we answer them and what we will not print.
What every audit covers
- Ownership
Who owns the brand today, from company filings, official registers and the owner’s own reports, not from the brand’s heritage story.
- Who makes it
Indian product pages must carry a Legal Metrology declaration: the MRP, the country of origin and the manufacturer or importer. We read these declarations and say what they show, with the date we read them.
- Price in India
Where a brand sells abroad, we compare like with like, with consumption taxes removed on both sides, and we state the exchange rate and the date.
- MRP against the real price
Many brands in India sell far below their printed MRP. We compare the MRP with the actual selling price across the products listed on FashionAudit on a stated date, report the typical (median) figures, and spot-check the brand’s own site or marketplaces. Charts on our pages are drawn from these figures and from the sources listed.
- Where to buy
Official stores, authorised retailers and marketplaces, and where the counterfeit risk sits.
- The record
Decided court judgments, regulator orders and advertising-council rulings, with what was decided and when.
- The FA take
Our verdict on who the brand is for and whether it is worth the Indian price. It is an opinion, clearly marked as one, based on the facts on the page.
Our sourcing rules
- Every factual claim has a source, listed in the References section of the page.
- Prices, listings, company status and other facts that change are dated “as at” the day we checked them. Treat older figures as a snapshot, not a live price.
- Where we cannot source a fact, we leave it out rather than guess. If a figure comes only from a third-party estimate or from the company’s own claims, we say so.
- Company status, such as an insolvency process or a credit rating, is taken from the official record (for example the National Company Law Tribunal, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, Companies House or the rating agency) and dated.
What we do not print
- Allegations. We report legal matters only once they have been decided, and we say what was decided.
- Claims about a private individual’s conduct.
- Guesses about whether a product claim is true. Where a brand makes a claim such as an SPF rating or a certification, we report what its pages show and suggest readers ask the brand for the test report or certificate.
How the pages are made
Brand audits are built from filings, listings and other public sources. Product reviews are based on our own hands-on testing. Our research and first drafts are produced with the help of AI tools, which gather public sources, compare prices and read public filings. Every page is checked against its sources and edited by the FashionAudit team before it is published. Some cover images and illustrations are made with AI image tools; they are not photographs of the brand’s products.
Independence
No brand pays for an audit or approves one before it is published. Some links on our pages are affiliate links; our affiliate disclosure explains how they work. Any paid collaboration with a brand is labelled as one, and it does not change an audit.
Corrections
If something on a page is wrong or out of date, tell us. Our corrections policy explains what to send and what we do with it.