OUCH! That Hurts! New York Fashion Week SLAP Turns into $1Million Lawsuit as Zac Posen’s Publicist Sues Editor who Slapped her #Fashionlaw

To the outsider looking in at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week New York, the shows always look so amazing, effortless and sweet. However, beyond the backstage chaos that both designers and models are used to, there is a lot more you don’t see. What you don’t see are the photographers struggling for position at the “front of the house” as they wait for the shows to begin. You hear the verbal attacks and sometimes see physical fights. You of course also don’t see the immense stress public relations agencies and publicists  go through with ensuring  everyone is seated where they need to be.

What happens if you have been assigned a seat, you show up and someone is already seating in your seat? This is a common occurrence. You can ask them to vacate the seat for you, or you could just have the Publicist do it. It sounds like the Publicist at Zac Posen’s show tried to do the above but the attendee below had an issue with her execution. In response, the attendee, a French Editor, slapped Zac Posen’s Publicist. The Publicist got smart. She lawyered up. Why hit back when you can easily file a police report, push the the police and DA to file charges for misdemeanor assault and battery against the person who hit you; and to make sure they keep their hands to themselves, sue them for a cool $1million in civil court?

FASHIONENTLAW.COM LEGAL COMMENTARY

I have covered assault and battery but in a model context when Fashion Model Selita Ebanks got into a physical altercation with Telemundo’s Liz Irizarry. It mirrors more of  the type of fights we see in the industry. The analysis there and the legal issues I discuss, parallel the one in this case.

Allow me to show you via the video clip below from Nollywood, the 2nd largest film industry in the world, what you don’t want to do at fashion shows, especially to Zac Posen’s Publicist.

Festival of Slaps

Excerpt of the story from Gotham:

“New York Fashion Week is wrapping up, and it wasn’t all fabulously expensive raiments and creative street style—it seems that violence is also “in” this season. First, there was the Fashion Night Out “riot” that left anan Audi damaged, the driver shaken up and . Then, on Sunday, a French magazine editor slapped fashion designer Zac Posen’s publicist over seats at his show.

The dustup was first reported by WWD on Monday:

 About 30 minutes before Zac Posen’s scheduled start, fire marshals decided to pull 60 seats from the designer’s mostly front-row Avery Fisher Hall venue. It caused quite some confusion and a headache for Posen’s public relations firm, HL Group. That, and the 40-minute delay said to have been caused by Naomi Campbell’s late arrival, must have been too much for at least one French publishing executive and her team, namely Marie-JosĂ© Susskind-Jalou, president of Jalou publishing house, and her daughters, Jennifer Eymere and Vanessa Bellugeon of Jalouse and L’Officiel magazines, respectively.

Witnesses said Susskind-Jalou didn’t have a seat, and HL Group co-founder Lynn Tesoro was trying to find her one. Impatient with the situation, the quartet left the terrace venue, when, according to reports, the trio started screaming at the p.r. veteran — which somehow ended with Tesoro being slapped in the face. Tesoro confirmed the incident happened, but declined to comment further.”

Gotham has the full story.

-Uduak
Twitter: @uduaklaw

Photocredit: Lynn Tesoro Mimi Rtzen Crawford/Getty Images