Patrick and the Fashionista FitHow a 15 minute jeans fitting in a Starbucks bathroom became part of a lawsuit

February 3, 2019Becca Peter

Patrick Winget, LuLaRoe’s former high profile designer, recently gave a deposition in the MyDyer lawsuit. In the deposition, he was asked if he had ever given a deposition before. He said yes.

I found that lawsuit and his deposition.

Let’s start at the beginning. At LuLaRoe’s heyday, most consultants were lead to believe that Patrick was an amazingly successful designer, and LuLaRoe was incredibly lucky to have him working for them.

I attempted to fact check the claims that were made about him, and was unable to verify most of them.

We do know that he had his own denim company in the mid 2000s in Los Angeles called “Decent”. They featured jeans with an interesting zipper

Then he ran a bike company called “Red Your Dead” which was subsequently rebranded as “Red You R Dead” and then “ryd.” If you can weed through a lot of stupid/offensive comments, there is a long discussion forum thread from the bike community: https://tarck.cc/t/red-you-r-dumb/17857/28

Between Red Your Dead and LuLaRoe, we knew that Patrick was involved with a clothing company called Comune, one article lists him as the design director, and the Comune catalog lists him as their clothing designer.

This seems to be where our paths intersect with the Sekses lawsuit.

In his MyDyer deposition, Patrick mentioned that he worked for Sekses. It turns out, Comune is a division of Sekses.

So I searched for this Sekses vs Wet Seal lawsuit and found it in Los Angeles County. $140 or so later, I have a rough idea of what happened.

In January 2013, Sekses filed a lawsuit against Wet Seal in Los Angeles County. Wet Seal responded by filing a counter claim. They hashed it out in court for a couple years, and then there was a stay on the proceedings because Wet Seal filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Eventually in 2016 it appears some sort of settlement was reached (but I have no idea which party paid the other) because they finally asked for the case to be dismissed.

If you want to slog through the hundreds of pages of legal docs I have downloaded, you can have at it: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ihrj8siwwljwuqc/AAA9z5CUqnCdy3EIIcUvDi87a?dl=0

Or keep reading for the highlights…

The story according to Sekses:

Sekses is a company that does private label type stuff for companies like Wet Seal.

For example, a company like Wet Seal approaches Sekses and asks for X number of this style of jeans to be made. And then Sekses works with the actual factories to get the jeans made.

In August 2012, Wet Seal asked Sekses to make the indigo wash version of their Fashionista jeans. Sekses made up some samples, Wet Seal liked the samples, and said yes, makes us 400,000 jeans just like these samples, these will be perfect for Christmas shopping season.

In November the first 58,635 pairs of jeans arrived to Wet Seal. Wet Seal had their fit model try them on and they didn’t fit. Wet Seal freaked out and asked Sekses to relabel the sizing of the jeans at the expense of Sekses. So Sekses does this and pays for the first 58,635 pairs.

Sekses resizes another 12,123 pairs and delivers those to Wet Seal and Wet Seal pays for them.

Then Sekses tries to deliver more and Wet Seal cancels the order and refuses to pay. Sekses stops production at the factory, but it stuck with 68,741 pairs of jeans that have branded embroidery, so they can’t just relabel them and sell them elsewhere.

Wet Seal filed their cross complaint and had their own version of this story…

The story according to Wet Seal:

The story starts out about the same. Wet Seal says they began having conversations in July 2012.

Wet Seal says their Fashionista jeans come in different washes, and different manufacturers make the different washes. It is really important that the fit and feel of the jeans be the same across manufacturers, so they have this really detailed manual they give each one. In July 2012, an unnamed representative from Sekses showed Wet Seal different washes and fabrics that they could produce these jeans in. I bring this up, because we don't know if this was Patrick or not, but it is possible this is where the mention of the Wet Seal Rinse Wall came from in the Patrick info that was disseminated among consultants.

Anyway, Wet Seal picked the fabric and rinse they liked, gave Sekses the specs, Sekses made a sample, Wet Seal had their fit model try it, they had a few comments for adjustments to make. The fabric Sekses was using was stretchier than some of the other manufacturers, so Wet Seal had them adjust a few things to account for that.

Wet Seal starts ordering jeans. Second fit samples is better, a few more tweaks. More orders placed. October 2nd sample is considered the approval sample. Only very minor changes needed, so they do not feel the need for a final fitting. At all times, the documents are very specific about the exact percentages on the fabric.

October 9 the first “Top of Production” (TOP) samples arrive, from the first batch of orders, and they seem OK and are approved. It isn’t clear from whether or not a fit model ever tried these on.

But then October 22, the TOP samples from the second batch of orders arrive, and Wet Seal is like WTAF IS THIS SHIT?! just kidding that’s not submitted into the record. This was…

So Wet Seal is trying to figure out what is up, because the jeans are measuring fine, but are not fitting fine. “The production jeans were cutting into the waist of the fit model and the knees and thighs were too tight.”

Yikes.

More TOP samples keep coming in, and Wet Seal keeps rejecting them. The first shipment of jeans arrives and they are not fitting and Wet Seal is freaking out. The holidays are HERE and they need these jeans in the store NOW, so Wet Seal agrees to allow Sekses to relabel all of the jeans one size smaller to get approximately the correct fit.

Reps from Wet Seal and Sekses meet in person on November 6, 2012. They pull some random jeans from an unopened box and have a fit model try them on and they did not fit properly.

The Sekses CEO emails Wet Seal and admits that some of the jeans did not properly fit the model, but implies that she is too big, and says he won’t tell the factory of the issue because it could jeopardize other business he has with them.

Wet Seal asks Sekses to place orders on hold. Sekses tells them more jeans have been produced. Wet Seal does not agree to accept these jeans.

So in the end, Wet Seal agreed to accept and pay for the resized jeans from the first two groups of orders, but did not agree to pay for the third group of orders which had already been produced.

Wet Seal alleges that the resized jeans still sucked:

Why did the jeans still suck?

Oh. Well that could potentially explain it.

So Wet Seal is alleging that not only do they not owe money to Sekses for the Group 3 orders of jeans, but that Sekses damaged them and that Sekses should pay them.

Where does Patrick fit in?

In this case, Sekses is trying to argue that the jeans were fine, that the issue was with Wet Seal’s fit model.

Sekses claims that Patrick was their Design Director during the relevant period and that he has many years of experience working with denim.

Patrick gave a deposition on this case on November 5, 2013, which I believe was after he began working for LuLaRoe.

Unfortunately, I do not have the entire deposition, but below is what I have pieced together from multiple documents…

Note the change in page numbers.

That is the end of what was submitted into evidence. Does any of this matter? It probably matters a little to you if you made it this far.

Patrick was such a celebrity in LuLaCulture, a lot of consultants are interested in what his pre-LLR life looked like.

Unfortunately, Facebook shut down the LuLaRoe Defective group, which played an important role in raising awareness of the extensive amount of litigation that LuLaRoe has faced in the past two years, as well as providing support for the tens of thousands of former consultants who had negative experiences with the company.

Defective was a community that worked together to expose the truth. And this community will continue to thrive regardless of our status with Facebook.

The Defective admins have created the r/DefectiveDetectives subreddit on reddit.com This is a different experience for all of us, but one that has the potential to reach an even bigger audience.

I have also created a LuLaLegalWoes email list to keep anyone interested up to date on LLR’s legal issues and more. You can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/gf4ZNz

Most lawsuits cost money to download, and not every lawsuit is available on Pacer. This lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County, which charges $1/page for small documents, 40 cents a page for large documents, with a cap of $40 per document. I spent about $140 to bring you this information. The MyDyer lawsuit and WA Attorney General lawsuit are also filed in county courts which are more expensive than Pacer’s fees.

If you want to help out with the expenses I am incurring throughout the year downloading these public records, you can purchase washi tape from my shop PrettyPackagesTape.com or chip in via PayPal becca@polevaultpower.com

Thank you everyone who has supported my efforts and the the efforts of the Defective admins, and thank you everyone who has supported the former consultants who have been harmed by this company.