The owner of Fifi & Romeo claimed that they met Vanderpump and Todd at the American Humane Association’s Hero Dog Awards in 2012 and was later “asked to create a custom designed luxury outfit for [their] Pomeranian Giggy to wear to the American Humane Association’s fashion show” later that year. The owner claimed Todd loved the outfit and asked the company to create more clothes for Giggy afterwards.
At that point, Vanderpump and Todd “orally proposed” that Fifi & Romeo provide custom outfits for Giggy “in exchange for [their] promotion of [Fifi & Romeo]’s brand in all forms of media (including, but not limited to, Twitter, Instagram and all print),” according to the Los Angeles County court documents obtained by Radar Online.
Their agreement was honored from May 2013 to October 2015 and they even decided to “execute a partnership agreement” where Vanderpump “would design exclusive pet clothing” for the brand and Fifi & Romeo would “manufacture and sell the apparel under the name ‘Fifi Romeo for Vanderpump Pets'” in September 2015. But, the suit alleged that Vanderpump and Todd began acting strange just a week after the agreement was signed.
READ THE COURT DOCUMENTS VIA RADAR ONLINE!
“[Fifi & Romeo] noticed that [Vanderpump and Todd] repeatedly failed to credit Fifi & Romeo in photos and television interviews in which Giggy wore [their] clothes,” the company claimed. “In fact, in some instances, [Vanderpump and Todd] edited previous social media posts mentioning [the company] and purposely misspelled [their] brand name so [they] would not receive the proper recognition.”
The suit alleged that Vanderpump and Todd also made just two payments before “failing” to cough up the rest of the manufacturing costs as discussed in their agreement. Then, Fifi & Romeo was excluded from Vanderpump’s Yulin March event in October 2015.
“For the eight months following the execution of the Parties’ business agreement, [Vanderpump and Todd] continued to fail to credit [Fifi & Romeo] as per their oral agreement,” the papers continued. “[They] began to become distant with [the company] and failed to return phone calls and requests for samples.”
“Soon thereafter [the company] discovered [Vanderpump and Todd] created [their] own pet clothing line, Vanderpump Pets,” the suit continued, noting that the reality stars did not include Fifi & Romeo in the line despite their agreement.
Finally, Fifi & Romeo claimed that the restaurateurs “never intended to honor their agreement, but rather intended to use [them] and [their] products to build their own brand and eventually launch their own dog apparel line.”
Meanwhile, a source close to the Bravo reality star claims she and husband Ken Todd are “huge fans” of the company, Fifi & Romeo.
“She has even promoted them on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, E! and her social media,” the insider told Radar Online. “She was also working on a collaboration with her, but it had some delays recently because Lisa has been incredibly busy. She just got back from vaccinating 1,200 dogs who were saved from Yulin, and was also helping with hurricane relief efforts.”
“When Lisa got word of this lawsuit she was just really shocked. She thought that she and Fifi & Romeo had a very healthy relationship, and was really hoping to release a joint collaboration with them in the next couple of months.”
Photo Credit: Bravo
