At a crucial moment some years back when New York's top modeling agencies were considering whether to raise the prices they charged clients, Monique Pillard, an executive at Elite Model Manage-ment, dashed off a memo to colleagues. The agencies, she wrote, would be "committing suicide if we don't stick together." Noting that one rival at the Wilhelmina agency had warned her that such talk could give the impression of a price-fixing conspiracy, Pillard wrote, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" and dismissed the idea with an expletive.
The document is typical of the kind of evidence jurors in US District Court in Manhattan will be shown beginning June 1, when a complex class-action suit brought by a group of models against their former modeling agencies goes to trial. Though jurors may show up expecting sexy stuff, they will soon learn that the case has little to do with catwalks, lingerie or lithe beauties and everything to do with the interpretation of documents like the one lawyers now refer to as the "Ha-ha-ha" memo.
Is it evidence that Pillard knew she was involved in a price-fixing scheme? Or proof that she thought suspicions about such a scheme were way off the mark?
The fate of some of the best-known New York modeling agencies -- Elite, Next, Wilhelmina and Ford Models among them -- may hang on just such questions. Because the plaintiffs have charged the agencies with fixing the commissions of potentially thousands of models over a period of years and because damages in antitrust lawsuits are tripled, a verdict against the agencies could cost them tens of millions of dollars -- much more, the agencies have said, than they have on hand.
Some could face bankruptcy from the legal fees alone, say people with knowledge of the suit. The models have intimated in court papers, and in two related suits in New York State Supreme Court, that if they can't collect from the agencies themselves, they'll go after the personal assets of some of the biggest names in the modeling industry, like Dieter Esch, the head of Wilhelmina; John Casablancas, the founder of Elite; and the Ford family, which started Ford Models.
"It would mean a wholesale Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for everyone," said Heinz Holba, the president of New York Model Management and one of the few Manhattan agency heads not involved in the litigation. There have already been casualties since the suit was filed in 2002. The New York branch of Elite, the global modeling agency that manages Lauren Bush and Paulina Porizkova, filed for bankruptcy in February, in part, the agency said, because of roughly US$1.5 million in legal fees incurred in defending itself against the suit. Pillard, who said she has filed for personal bankruptcy in part because of her legal bills in the case, called the lawsuit "idiotic."
"We have never cheated any models out of anything," she said. "It's totally wrong and ridiculous."
Two weeks ago, IMG, the giant entertainment agency known mostly for its representation of athletes, settled with the plaintiffs for more than US$11 million, according to a source familiar with the settlement. Linda Dozoretz, a spokeswoman for IMG, confirmed the settlement but declined to comment on the US$11 million figure. The settlement may have been motivated by a provision in antitrust cases that makes defendants with money responsible for the damages incurred by co-defendants who have gone broke.
The case is so sprawling -- it has involved 10 different modeling agencies, and because it is a class-action suit, potentially thousands of models -- that most major figures in the Manhattan modeling industry are in some way involved.
And nearly everyone in the fashion world has an opinion.
The agencies' defenders say that for the most part modeling firms are low-margin mom and pop operations that cannot even afford liability insurance, and they paint the small group of models who originally brought the suit as embittered by stalled careers.
"I'm so offended by these models doing this," said Bruce Weber, the fashion photographer. "I know some of them. It depresses me so much that there's this bitterness from people who were never really able to do well in this business. That's what this is from."
The models' sympathizers say that the industry is known for its rapacious attitude toward vulnerable young people, and that it has long lacked professionalism.
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