Wedding dress designer Hayley Paige Gutman made an appearance Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill at a subcommittee hearing on the potential ban on employee nondisclosure agreements.
Invited as a witness by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Gutman’s appearance before the US Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee subcommittee on Economic Policy touched on professional struggles and even the US women’s gymnastics team at the Olympics. Dressed in a hot pink suit with her blonde curls, Gutman’s style was reminiscent of Reese Witherspoon’s “Elle Woods” outfit in a mock convention scene in the 2003 film “Legally Blonde 2.”
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Laughing during her brief remarks, Gutman, who co-founded the label She Is Cheval, told the audience that he knew from a young age what she wanted to do with her life. She said, “I have dedicated my childhood, education and industry experience to bring joy to women through wedding dress design. And I loved him boy.”
Before discussing how his “journey” turned out and what his three-and-a-half-year legal battle with his former employer has been, Gutman informed the audience of his “international acclaim” after appearing on the show reality show “Say Yes. for Gúna,” as well as the brand that was once distributed in 300 stores.
On Tuesday, the designer explained that she signed an employment contract that included a non-compete clause in 2011 when she was 25 years old. The contract belonged to JLM Couture, which she did not identify by name. (She continued to design her eponymous wedding dress until 2020. That same year JLM took legal action against her for allegedly locking the company out of “Hayley Paige’s” social media accounts and violating a non-compete agreement, in among other alleged violations.)
Opening the event, the Senator suggested that NDA would affect 1 in 5 American workers in a variety of fields including “doggie day care” and hair salon stylists among others. She also spoke in favor of the Federal Trade Commission’s final rule to promote competition by prohibiting non-competes. Warren also reiterated the FTC’s estimates that more than 8,500 new businesses per year will be created as a result of such action. She also praised the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket for their efforts.
Gutman is the latest Millennial social media stalwart to take a public stance on Capitol Hill recently. In late June, Paris Hilton testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, detailing her abuse as a teenager in a residential youth treatment center and calling for child welfare reforms. Gutman’s social media account and her appeal to younger fans were said to be part of the incentive to include her in Tuesday’s hearing. The other two witnesses were Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute and orthopedic surgeon R. James Toussaint.
In late May, Gutman and JLM settled their years-long legal battle. As part of the deal, Gutman agreed to pay JLM $263,000 and the New York-based multi-brand company gave the designer rights to the “Hayley Paige” name and social media accounts. That also paved the way for her to return to the bridal industry, designing wedding dresses. With over a million followers on Instagram and Pinterest, the designer used those media – albeit under different names – to periodically air her legal woes, just as she used them to shop to attract
JLM chief executive officer Joseph Murphy did not acknowledge a request for comment Tuesday about Gutman’s appearance on Capitol Hill.
Over the weekend, the designer used her Instagram to tease her fans about her plans to visit the Beltway, by posting an invitation for Warren to speak at the hearing. Before the subcommittee, the designer spoke about the “disproportionate negotiating power that many young employees and young creatives have”. Without naming JLM Couture, Gutman summarized the entire legal ordeal, and how she was unpaid in her chosen trade for a period of seven years and had to give up her much-followed social media accounts on hand. Gutman claimed that she “refused to succumb to victimhood,” publicly changed her name and started Instagram but was unwilling to change her trade after dedicating her life to the necessary skill set.
She and JLM Couture have been at war since 2020 in the courts. In January, the Second Circuit Court rejected the six-factor social media account ownership test and granted a preliminary injunction that left JLM in control of her social media accounts. At that time, the court supported her attorneys’ argument that ownership should be determined “like any other type of property,” by determining who owned the account at the time it was created and then assessing whether the owner sold or transferred the account. In 2021, the designer was sidelined from competing with JLM until the end of her contract, or from using “Hayley Paige” in advertising. Earlier this year, a federal court ruled that Gutman would have to stay out of that non-compete until the end of 2025. But the two parties’ settlement in late May upended that and Gutman’s return to the bridal industry was given the green light.
On Tuesday, Gutman spoke about the “residual stress” his brides had, due to their situation. Now a small business owner, Gutman said, “What I’ve learned is that there are very effective legal precautions you can take to protect your intellectual property. There are also privacy policies, fiduciary duties and ways to effectively impose non-disclosure agreements to effectively protect trade secrets.”
In one of the unexpected parts of her comments, the designer drew attention to the Summer Games in Paris. “The irony is that this hearing is taking place on one of the best days of competition in the world — the women’s gymnastics team finals at the Olympics. I was a competitive gymnast for 16 years so you can only imagine the poetry I am experiencing right now. I can tell you the pride and patriotism you feel when you have no limit to what they can do – that’s where the magic is,” said Gutman. “…so long live any competition and let your girl design a dress.”
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