![]() “Ford’s unfair competition has been willful and malicious,” the suit says.įord also hired away two other high-level Elite staffers, Alexi Louison and Aurelie Bachelier, “who were both key Paris-based employees of Elite-Paris,” the lawsuit alleges. proprietary information to gain an unfair competitive advantage.” “If there is a model war going on, it should be fought on the runways and on magazine covers, not in state Supreme Court,” said Williams’ lawyer, James Wicks.įord is trying to “replicate” Elite’s operation, Cousin complained.Įlite’s suit says that by stealing Williams, Ford gained his “unique set of skills and abilities,” namely his relationship “with many of The Society’s most highly valued models.”Įlite also charges that “Ford has improperly utilized confidential and. Kwok Kan Chan and Christopher Michael Williams Patrick McMullanĪnd while Elite held up its end by continuing to pay Chan and Williams until the five-year contracts ran out, the two have been busy flouting the contracts by helping Elite models jump to Ford, the lawsuit alleges. ![]() Williams, who helped launch the modeling career of Kendall Jenner, was “one of The Society’s top-performing agents,” Elite argues in its suit.īoth Chan and Williams started with The Society in 2012, signing five-year contracts and earning in the mid-six figures, according to Cousin.īut last October, four years into their contracts, Chan and Williams resigned within four days of each other to work for Ford, Cousin alleges. The Hong Kong-born Chan formerly repped gap-toothed beauty Georgia May Jagger - Mick’s daughter with model Jerry Hall - and was top scout for The Society Management, the name of Elite’s US division. The two alleged turncoat execs are modeling-biz powerhouses Kwok Kan Chan and Christopher Michael Williams, both named as defendants in the suit along with Ford Models itself. ![]() In addition to Trentini, German-born blonde Alena Blohm and Frenchwomen Josephine Le Tutour and Cora Emmanuel have also recently catwalked over from Elite to Ford, according to Elite’s lawyer, Brian S. “Caroline Trentini is a huge talent, and her defection sends a clear signal to other supermodels that Ford is back on top, in a big way,” an industry source told The Post. Josephine Le Tutour Getty ImagesĮlite is crying foul, claiming in its suit that its two top New York execs broke their noncompete agreements and are now luring Elite’s models to Ford. In the past year, two of Elite’s top New York executives, two of its key Paris staffers and three of its top mannequins have all jumped to Ford - including Brazilian model Caroline Trentini, a staple of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows and a perennial favorite of Marc Jacobs. “Elite and Ford are in the business of not liking each other,” the judge on the case, Charles Ramos, noted wryly during a hearing in the spring. In a newly revealed Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit, Elite now says it is Ford doing the body-snatching. Ford sent out her infamous stack of Bibles, the stiletto is on the other foot. ![]() The combatants are, once again, Elite and Ford, for decades the two biggest names in the modeling industry.īut 40 years after Mrs. Well, spandex and shoulder pads are still out of fashion - but the Model Wars are making a comeback. Such was the ferocity of the notorious Model Wars, a cutthroat, years-long back-and-forth of bidding battles and litigation between Ford and Elite in the 1970s and ’80s. ‘Elite and Ford are in the business of not liking each other.’ Then she had couriers hand-deliver a copy to each of the international residences of her cigar-chomping employee-turned-rival, John Casablancas, whose new Elite New York agency was so aggressively poaching her models that he had earned the nickname “The Body Snatcher.” Going through each one, she underlined every reference to “Judas Iscariot” in red marker. In 1977, Eileen Ford - the tough-as-nails headmistress of Ford Models - bought a stack of Bibles. ![]()
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