Hayley Paige Gutman loses control over her Instagram handle
Hayley Paige Gutman and fashion company JLM Couture are in between a tumultuous legal battle over their social media accounts. These accounts are connected to the brands of the famous wedding dress designer. JLM owns world re-known Hayley Paige’s brands. JLM sued Hayley Paige Gutman after several months of some issues between them over her personal use of company social media accounts. Later, JLM was also granted a temporary restraining order against her.
A few days later of such order, popular wedding dress designer Hayley Paige also announced to her fans that she has been restrained from using her own name in any kind of business endeavours in any manner or even speak it out loud due to a temporary restraining order from its parent company, JLM Couture. This was also the name of her fashion line.
The designer further said, “I have also lost access to my @misshayleypaige Instagram account, which has more than 1 million followers. I warn all my fans as the account is still posting, I am no longer behind it.” In response to her parent company’s act, Gutman publicly announced her resignation from the company in an Instagram video, where she claimed that JLM locked her out of the @misshayleypaige social-media accounts and also barred her from using her own name in a business context. “I am mortified and devastated, but I wanted to tell you that I am no longer posting or engaging on that account until this matter is resolved in court,” she said in a video on a second account, @allthatglittersonthegram.
JLM Couture primarily sued the designer for breach of contract in a New York federal court. The company’s main gripe is over the Instagram account named @misshayleypaige, which JLM claims that it holds the ownership and has the only right to operate as it sees fit. It further filed a temporary restraining order restraining Gutman from using her own name or her social media accounts before the court and it was also granted by the judge. In the complaint, JLM accused Gutman that she hijacked the Instagram account and later claimed it as her own personal account that too after contract negotiations between the two parties. In a statement to the New York Post, the company said, “While negotiating a new contract, the two sides disagreed over how much freedom Hayley would have to promote her non-related side businesses on the company site.” JLM further added, “After Hayley stopped posting JLM content and deprived the company access to the account, we brought the matter before the court. After carefully listening to both sides, a judge granted us the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO). We respect the judge’s decision that JLM should have temporary control over the company site and feel the process was fair and equitable.”
JLM made several assertions in its complaint that as per the initial contract which Gutman signed in 2011, JLM owns the right to her name, any derivatives of her name, and even to all her designs. This further extends to every social media account bearing her name. The company also said that its marketing team is behind making her Instagram account so big and attributed much of Gutman’s line’s success to the company. The complaint further stated that it was the company’s marketing campaigns and the quality of its clothing that helped the line to grow in popularity in large part. Gutman’s designs were not the only factor behind such popularity.
Gutman also told her followers through a video on Instagram that she was of 25 years of ae when she signed the initial contract with JLM Couture, a naïve person who just entered the industry. She also added that she did not get a chance to have a lawyer look over the contract. “If anyone tells you that you don’t need to have a lawyer look at an agreement or contract, please get a lawyer, if that is the only thing you take away from this video,” she said. After having a thorough reading of the whole complaint, one can make out that the main issue between the company and Gutmanis the act of Gutman using her name on social media. The company states, “Gutman began using her name on TikTok in 2019, posting videos that did not properly represent her brand.” Since then, Gutman and JLM have been locked in a prolonged battle over the Instagram account, which Gutman asserts is her own personal account.
In her recent Instagram video, Gutman claimed that she had been using the account as a hybrid since she even started it by mixing her personal and professional lives as a wedding dress designer. Soon after the video went up on Instagram, many women on social media started to express their support for their beloved Gutman. In her video, Gutman even asked her fans to share it as much as possible with others so they could exactly know what was going on. She further promised to even share more about her future plans and ventures. “I love being a wedding dress designer, and I feel like I was put on this earth to do this,” she said. “And I do not feel that that love should come at the expense of certain things. And I will not be bullied.”
