A minimalist wardrobe, organised lifestyle and neutrals galore… it’s hardly a formula that you’d think would warrant a legal battle.

Yet influencers Sydney Nicole Gifford, now based in Minnesota after moving from Texas, and Alyssa Sheil, from Austin, are fighting over exactly that, with both likely hoping to prove that their version of the ‘clean-girl aesthetic’ vibe is uniquely their own.

Gifford, 24, who has 298,000 followers on Instagram, and another 599.6k on TikTok, has filed what is being dubbed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit accusing fellow content creator Sheil, 21, of copying her TikTok, Instagram and Amazon Storefront posts.

She claims Sheil duplicated her ‘neutral, beige and cream aesthetics’, promoted the same Amazon products and used similar language, according to Texas court records, reported The New York Post. 

Gifford also alleges in her lawsuit that her rival copied her specific frames in videos, her manner of speaking, appearance and even tattoos. This resemblance between their pages apparently cut into Gifford’s influencer earnings.

But opening up in an interview with The Verge this week, Sheil, who has under 440,000 followers on the two social media platforms, insisted: ‘There are hundreds of people with the exact same aesthetic, and I’m the only one that’s having to go through this.

‘It’s coming across very gatekeep-y… Like, “I’m the only one that’s allowed to be successful in this program, I’m the only one that’s allowed to put my foot in the door.”

‘I do think that there’s space and definitely enough money for everyone that’s in [the Amazon influencer] program.’

Sydney Nicole Gifford (pictured left), now based in Minnesota after moving from Texas, and Alyssa Sheil (pictured right), from Austin, are two influencers

The two women met in Austin in December 2022, with the goal of supporting one another’s businesses. However, after a joint photoshoot in January 2023 (with opinions on both sides differing in terms of how well this went), Sheil blocked Gifford online.

She says it’s because she didn’t feel the need to keep up the relationship online if it wasn’t all that brilliant in real life.

While Gifford wasn’t offended, she later discovered from her followers that Sheil’s content had started to allegedly resemble her own.

A scroll through both their pages does perhaps reveal similar Amazon products, outfits and décor, with both fitting into the trendy ‘clean-girl aesthetic’, with creams, greys and beiges proving to be the most popular colour choices for most items.

According to court papers filed in the Western District of Texas this spring, at least 30 posts across Sheil’s platforms reportedly featured ‘identical styling, tone, camera angle and/or text’ to Gifford’s.

Gifford’s legal team sent cease and desist letters warning Sheil to stop, court papers are reported to have said, while the influencer also successfully lobbied social platforms to remove some of her rival’s allegedly infringing posts.

Then in April, Gifford sued Sheil after she carried on apparently copying her content. She is reportedly being sued for damages that could end up into the millions. In November, a judge ruled that Gifford’s case could proceed.

Gifford (pictured left), 24, who has 298,000 followers on Instagram, and another 599.6k on TikTok , has filed what is being dubbed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit accusing fellow content creator Shei (pictured right), 21, of copying her TikTok, Instagram and Amazon Storefront posts 

Gifford (pictured left) claims Sheil (pictured right) duplicated her ‘neutral, beige and cream aesthetics’, promoted the same Amazon products and used similar language, according to Texas court records, reported The New York Post

The influencers, who are like online personal shoppers as they suggest and review various products for their hundreds of thousands of followers, have bought homes thanks to their jobs. 

Gifford, who now goes by Sydney Nicole Slone on social media following her wedding, told The Verge how the amount she earns has now largely returned to what it apparently was.

The TikTok star, who is currently pregnant with a baby boy, claims this is because Sheil is allegedly making less posts that look like her ‘vibe’ and because she has changed how she films her footage; she has stopped using similar décor found in her rival’s clips and shows her face more.

Gifford is asking a judge to bar her counterpart from duplicating her content, along with unspecified damages. Sheil ‘vigorously denies all the allegations’, her attorney Jason McManis has said.

Amazon, meanwhile, declined to comment on the lawsuit, according to The Verge.

MailOnline has contacted Gifford, Sheil and Amazon for comment.