We went to Tom Ford and all we got was a $940 t-shirt. But apparently they do it differently in Miami.
A top salesperson at the city’s Tom Ford boutique alleges that their boss treated a select group of super-VIP clients to sex in fitting rooms, on-demand photographs of her intimate parts, and even tried to offer threesomes with other staff members when their eyes wandered to other luxury stores.
The best performers at the flagship Design District store earn more than $200,000 a year, and its biggest-spenders are used to being flown to Milan for Tom Ford runway shows twice a year.
But a retail veteran who’s been one of the store’s top earners for years has filed a complaint with the federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming that his manager — a tall, slender and stylish woman known on the city’s social circuit — threw in her own extra perks, and that the company turned a blind eye when he complained.
The employee alleged in the filing, seen by Page Six, that the manager began telling him about her exploits around 2020, and confided about her relationships with several whales, including a wealthy movie director, referred to in the document as Mr. B.
He claims that she eventually began to rope him into her activities by having him “stand guard” while “she performed oral sex on Mr. B in the dressing rooms.”
“She would require me to distract Mr. B’s wife with makeup demonstrations while [she] had sex with Mr. B in the dressing room at the store,” he claimed, adding that, “she would announce that she had just performed fellatio on Mr B. in his Porsche car and require me to touch up her lipstick with Tom Ford in-store makeup products.”
He says he went along with it because he needed her help to remain one of the store’s elite sales staff, and feared that she’d make it harder if he refused.
Meanwhile, the employee says that the manager grew worried that the CEO of one of the world’s biggest companies — who is referred to as Mr. L in the filing, and is reported to have earned a salary above $10 million in 2022 — was losing his taste for the brand, which was founded in 2006 and has dressed everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Daniel Craig and Rihanna.
“One day, when I was on the floor of the store, [the manager] told me that Mr. L wanted to have a threesome with me,” he claimed in the papers, adding, “[She] implied that Mr L’s continued patronage was contingent on my assenting to his demand for sex.”
“She planned the threesome on FaceTime [in] her office so I could hear that she was using the possibility of sex with me in trade,” he alleged in the filing.
He also outlines her alleged relationships with three other top clients, including a Palm Beach attorney.
In October, the employee filed a complaint against Tom Ford Fashion, which Estée Lauder Companies bought from the designer Tom Ford for $2.8 billion in 2023, claiming that he reported the manager’s behavior to the firm, but that it had at first “did nothing for months,” then retaliated against him, and eventually fired the manager.
He attested to his account under penalty of perjury.
An EEOC complaint is usually required before filing a discrimination lawsuit. The agency has opened an investigation, according to online records.
A rep for Tom Ford told us in a statement: “Tom Ford Fashion is committed to maintaining a working environment free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, and the company previously conducted a thorough investigation into [the employee’s] claims. We strongly disagree with his characterization of this matter and the allegations he is now making, and we will address them at the appropriate time and through the relevant legal channels.”
Page Six made several attempts to contact the manager, but they went unanswered.
A rep for Mr. L denied the allegations.
Read the full article here
