Talk about a fashion faux-POW!
A French magazine editor was socked with a $1 million lawsuit Wednesday by a New York publicist after the editor reportedly slapped her at a Fashion Week show on Sunday.
PR guru Lynn Tesoro filed suit against Jalouse editor Jennifer Eymere in Manhattan Supreme Court less than 72 hours after the incident, claiming “assault, battery, emotional distress, slander and/or libel.”
The suit grows out of a dustup over highly coveted front-row seats for the Zac Posen show at Avery Fisher Hall.
About 30 minutes before the show was set to start, FDNY fire marshals yanked about 60 seats — mostly from the see-and-be-seen front row, according to the Women’s Wear Daily trade publication.
This created a huge headache for Tesoro’s firm, the HL Group, which was in charge of promoting Posen’s collection.
Eymere — apparently furious that her mother, Marie-Jose Susskind-Jalou, the president of Jalou publishing house, didn’t have a seat — started arguing with Tesoro, WWD reported.
Soon, Eymere, her mother and her sister, Vanessa Bellugeon, were “screaming” at Tesoro, a veteran publicist who has worked for Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani, according to WWD.
“I said ‘Don’t speak to my mom like this … Be careful. I am going to slap you.’ And she kept doing it and it just happened,” Eymere told WWD.
She told WWD she was sorry for the trouble, but noted:
” ‘It was a small slap. It was not strong. I didn’t hurt her. It was just to humiliate her. She humiliated my mom and I humiliated her in front of her crew. Voila. I just said at the end, ‘Now you know you don’t f–k with French people.’ “
Tesoro’s attorney, Peter D’Agostino, was unavailable Wednesday for comment.