A fashion designer favored by Kanye and Jay Z tried to coerce the manager of his London and Paris stores to hand over her ownership in the retail venture she spearheaded, a new $2.5 million Manhattan lawsuit charges.
In her suit, Barbara Mariani says she helped found the retail stores hawking designer-to-the-stars Rick Owens’ wares, and even put her life savings of about $25,000 into the fledgling project.
The suit was filed last week in Manhattan against FiftyFifty Inc., a corporation run by Owens and his partners.
“However, greed and jealousy at Mariani’s rapid success fueled an ongoing personal and business vendetta by Elsa Lanzo, Owens’ Italian business partner and creative director of the Rick Owens Group,” lawyers for the Michigan native argue in the suit.
Now Elsa Lanzo and Owens have “undertaken to unlawfully diminish Mariani’s role [in the stores] and confiscate her equity shares,” court papers allege.
In 2005, Mariani, a single mother of three, met Owens, a designer popular with Kanye West and Jay Z, his fashion icon wife, Michele Lamy, and Lanzo.
They soon brought her in as a manager and partner of Owens’ first store in Paris, France, which opened in 2007.
She put up her life savings in exchange for a 9 percent interest in the high-end boutique, located in the Palais Royal, a 17th-century palace across from the Louvre.
Mariani later switched to the London store, working “seven days a week, 16 hours a day, without holiday or respite,” court papers say.
Rick Owens opened its doors in the affluent Mayfair section of London with Mariani as the manager and 10 percent owner in 2009, court papers state.
In 2011, Owens abruptly asked her to step down from her role at the London store despite its success but she continued to manage the Paris location, the suit states.
Soon after, Lamy, known for her gold-plated teeth and face tattoos, approached Mariani in Paris and insisted that she “give up, for nothing” her ownership in the London store, the suit alleges.
Lanzo, now the CEO of the Rick Owens Group, launched a “five-year relentless campaign to intimidate Mariani into turning over her shares,” the papers allege.
In the last year, Lanzo has “drastically reduced Mariani’s role” in the Paris store and given her “humiliating, menial daily tasks,” the suit says.
The “emotional strain” of the prolonged humiliation has forced Mariani to go on medical leave, court papers allege.
A representative for Owen did not return a request for comment.